“She — she never recovered. The tremors — they never stop, not after that much cruciatus. I don't even know what else he did to her — before I got there—,” his voice broke. He shoved his hair away from his face and seemed to be struggling to breathe. “The whole summer — I couldn't… I couldn't do anything but tell her I was sorry.”
Draco was breathing so rapidly his hands were shaking, and he kept talking, the words just pouring from him. “My mother — she — she was never very strong. She nearly died when she was pregnant with me, and she never recovered from it. She — was always fragile after that. My father always said we had to take care of her. He made me swear, again and again growing up, that I'd always take care of her. When the Dark Lord finally left the manor — I tried to get her away; somewhere he couldn't find her or hurt her again. But she wouldn't go — she wouldn't go anywhere without me.”
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I was trying to take care of her. I was trying to keep her safe. I was trying to figure out a way to run — and then — she was burned to death in Lestrange Manor—”
Lucius wavered for a moment. Hermione thought perhaps he'd withdraw from her mind.
He shoved himself deeper into her buried memories.
Her mind was recoiling. She could feel an agonising, fracturing pain begin radiating out from the back of her head
There was screaming surrounding her.
Her voice. It sounded so much younger than she remembered it being. “D-did your father know?”
Draco swallowed. “No.” He looked away. “My father — he — he was very protective of my mother. If he'd known—”
He was silent for a moment. “Occlumency isn't a talent he has. Not to the level he would have needed it. He would have been vengeful, and it would have damned us all. My mother insisted we hide her condition from him. There was a potion prescribed by a Danish mind healer; it masked most of her symptoms. Prevented her from panicking when she was required to make appearances. She took it when my father visited. The Dark Lord had mostly kept my father in France and Belgium following his release. He assumed she was cold and distant because she blamed him for my taking the mark.”
The memory shifted.
She and Draco were in bed together, his arms wrapped possessively around her as he rested his head on her chest.
“I'm going to take care of you. I swear, Hermione, I'm always going to take care of you.”
“Tell me about your mother, Draco,” she said as she traced her fingers across the runes on his back. “Tell me everything you could never tell anyone.”
...
