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It was no secret that Draco Malfoy was damaged goods. Just the utterance of his surname in most circles brought, at the very least, narrowed eyes and huffs of indignation.
He knew he deserved their ire, the Mark on his arm was proof enough of that. But in the immediate days and years after the war, he often felt that no matter what he managed to do with the rest of his life, it would never be enough.
Supposing it was what he truly did deserve, he’d found a comfortable routine, wallowing in self-pity for the better part of three years, spending his days secluded in the depths of the manor and his nights at the seediest bars he could find in Diagon Alley.
Until the night of his twenty-first birthday, when she waltzed into the bar and subsequently into his life for good.
Of all the witches he could have expected to walk in that night, Hermione Granger was certainly towards the bottom of the list. She was alone, but she looked exhausted, apparently too tired to care about the dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was as wild as ever, errant curls escaping what he assumed had been a bun at the beginning of the day.
He would have smirked at the still familiar sight of her had he not been so shocked at her presence, and watching her face dawn in recognition of him, he suspected she felt much of the same.
But of course, because she was first in literally everything, Hermione recovered before him, marching up boldly to the counter and setting herself on the stool right next to his.
Even two years later, he wasn’t sure how she’d managed to draw him out so easily, to knock down the walls he’d spent the better part of his teenage years building. But before that night was finished, he’d broken down in front of her, apologizing for every hurt he’d inflicted.
Certainly the alcohol had helped loosen his tongue, but there was something about her , those entirely-too-large-for-anyone’s-good brown eyes locking with his, that caused the full force of his shame to slam into him with a potency that was crippling.
Everything spilled out. His apologies, his regret, his desire to do more, to be more, but his fear it would never be possible.
Draco was convinced Hermione was ready to hex him into oblivion when her eyes hardened and a look of pure determination took hold, but to his relief and shock, she dragged him from the bar, sobered him up and made a plan to help rehabilitate not only his image but himself as well.
Charity donations, a steady job at the ministry in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, (a job he was certain she had to call in more than a few favors to get him hired) and Saturdays spent with her doing what she had deemed ‘Muggle Immersion Therapy’ that supposedly helped him to learn and understand the world he had learned to detest.
As annoyed as he was at the initial prospect of half his weekend being spent doing muggle things, Draco found that as soon as he was in the orbit of one Hermione Granger, Golden Girl, Brightest Witch of Her Age, it was impossible to escape it.
There were completely overwhelming afternoons at the cinema, where he spent hours peeking through his fingers at the sights and sounds around him. Trips to museums and football matches and computers and something called bowling for which he cared nothing for due to the audacity of wearing used shoes .
Their relationship grew from awkward hesitance to genuine friendship. Which he found he was more than happy to accept, even if it meant denying that part of him that screamed louder and louder every time he saw her, which happened to be quite often considering she sought him out almost every day for lunch.
He never imagined he’d find himself in a world where he fell for her, but he had. And when he finally gathered enough courage to confess himself- after weighing the pros and cons for weeks because he really couldn’t afford to lose her friendship, but what if she felt the same way and he was done fighting and pretending he didn’t feel things just as deeply as anyone else- he completely buggered the whole thing, stumbling over his words and making a complete fool of himself, until she grabbed his tie and pulled him into a kiss, effectively sealing his fate.
They’d started dating right after that, and moved into a joint flat a few months later. It happened fast, but it felt right, despite some of the disapproving looks he was given on the daily, and the understandable hesitance at the beginning from her friends.
There weren’t many things in the world Draco would say he loved, but getting to know all of Hermione’s habits and quirks had been some of the best fun he’d ever had in his life.
She was vibrant and passionate. Brilliant in every way he refused to see when they were children. There wasn’t an argument she met that she didn’t like.
He loved her. Loved her.
Their relationship wasn’t perfect. They fought hard and loved harder, and she was everything he never knew he wanted in the most cliched way possible.
Things were good. Great even.
But even she couldn’t keep the nightmares away.
oOo
He was awakened by the sounds of his own screams.
It wasn’t new. Had been happening for years, in fact. But what was new, and still fairly novel, was the comforting sensation of small hands brushing the hair from his eyes, stroking his back and bringing a glass of water to his lips.
“Was it her again?” she softly asked, and he nodded on a shaking inhale.
“Always is.”
It would have made sense for Voldemort to be the source of his nightmares. He was a madman who had effectively ruined Draco’s life. A madman who had subjected him to torture and death, images that would be burned into his head until death finally took him.
But the Dark Lord was never at the center of his terrors. Certainly he was there, in the peripherals. But she was the star.
There was a fairly steady rotation of events involving Bellatrix Lestrange that visited him when he slept:
The first time he’d been made to torture as she cackled with glee. It was a young muggle girl who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He had always heard that you really had to mean it when using Unforgivables. As it turns out, it was absolutely true. He couldn’t muster the hatred he was supposed to feel. Until he imagined his aunt’s face instead, and it became surprisingly easy.
When she held his arm as he received the Dark Mark, her rancid breath making his nostrils flare while she whispered in his ear how honored he should feel. He could still feel her long and coarse hair on his skin that made him itch. He almost welcomed the pain slicing through his arm as he watched a skull and snake take form on the blank canvas of his skin, but the pain was soon so excruciating he had to bite his tongue so hard that he tasted blood.
And of course, the worst of all, that fateful day at the Manor where a girl he was taught to hate writhed on the floor under an enchanted knife and he did nothing to stop it.
“What was it this time?”
He nearly choked on the answer, the word in his mouth tasting like ash.
“You.”
Dreams of Hermione’s torture at the hands of his aunt had started long before they had met again, but now, they were so viscerally real he couldn’t distinguish them from the reality he was currently living in.
He felt a tear slip down his cheek, but his exhaustion kept him from caring.
“Oh, Draco.” Her arms encircled his shoulders, bringing him down to lay on her chest, his head pillowed by her breasts. “You’re safe now. It’s alright. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
He wished it were true.
“I’m so sorry, Hermione.” The words came out in an almost unintelligible rush as he tried to hide away into her, breathing in as much of her scent as he could to know she was alive and whole. “I didn’t stop her. I could have stopped her.”
“Stop that,” her words were tender and firm, and her fingers ran through his hair. “You would have been killed if you’d tried.”
He closed his eyes, fighting the urge to relax at the sensations her fingers brought. The cavern in his chest felt so full and empty at the same time. A gaping wound repeatedly picked at.
He didn’t deserve to be comforted by her.
Another tear escaped. “But I could have done something, anything.”
She pushed on his shoulders to sit him up, grabbing his face in her hands. He couldn’t help but melt into the warmth of her.
Inexplicably, it was warmth directed and meant for him.
“You did do something, Draco. You didn’t identify us. You gave us time. And I refuse to let you blame yourself. We were children. There were adults in the room who should have stopped it, and they didn’t.”
“Hermione-“
“It’s not your fault, Draco. She did this, not you.” Hermione paused to press her forehead to his. “I love you.”
His breath still caught every time she said it.
“I love you. And I’m still so sorry. ”
oOo
“It’s not real! I swear it’s fake! Please, I can’t take it anymore! You’ve got it wrong! Please !”
Hermione was no stranger to nightmares either.
Hers didn’t come as often as Draco’s, but they were deeper and harder to break out of. She got caught between the world of waking and sleeping.
He had to flood the room with light. Bend down on the floor to his knees in front of her so his tall form wasn’t so intimidating. Place her wand in her hand so she didn’t feel powerless. An act of trust he would only show to her.
For long minutes he would talk to her. Repeating phrases that brought her back.
“Hermione, you’re ok. You’re safe. You have your wand, see? She’s dead. Bellatrix is gone. She can’t hurt you. It’s me. It’s Draco.”
Eventually her eyes would focus and her breathing evened.
He pushed wild curls away from her face, his fingers coming away damp from her crying.
“It was her again?”
A watery, despondent laugh was his reply. “It’s always her, isn’t it?”
Draco sat next to her on the bed, and crushed her to him. “I’m so sorry.” He would never stop apologizing.
“Why can’t I stop these nightmares, Draco? Why can’t I let it go? What’s wrong with me?” Her voice broke and his heart along with it.
He laid them back gently, her head cradled in the crook of his neck and his arms wrapped around her like vices.
It took her awhile to settle, but when she started lightly tracing the cursed scars across his chest, he knew she had calmed. It was always her way of grounding herself.
“There’s nothing wrong with you. You were traumatized, she tortured you. That doesn’t leave you.”
It’s my fault, he wanted to say. He wanted to self-loathe. Let himself drift into an endless sea of doubt and hatred for his cowardice. But she needed him, and he was learning to be better, to be a partner.
So, he pushed it down, and held on.
“Draco?”
He placed a kiss to the crown of her head. “Hmm?”
“I’m so proud of you.”
He wondered if she knew his innermost thoughts. If she could tell how badly he wanted to be worthy of her.
He never would be, he knew. But he hoped in time he could believe that it didn’t matter. She gave her love freely, and so would he.
oOo
The decision for them to both begin seeing a mind healer had been a long time coming. It wasn’t a quick fix by any means. They both had numerous issues to work through. But as Hermione had reminded him, “Who doesn’t?”
They were encouraged to talk together. Their trauma was shared, there was no reason their healing couldn’t be, too.
Most nights found them lying in bed facing each other, breathing together in the space they shared. And they would speak of what they would do differently now if they could. It didn’t have to even be a plausible thing. It was meant to give agency where there was once none.
“I would protect you.”
“I would fight back.”
One night he reminded her of something she’d once said. “Do you remember when you told me that the people around us should have acted and stopped it? The adults?”
She nodded her head, and threaded his fingers with hers. “Yes.”
“We are adults now, you know.” At her confused look, he went on. “I imagine myself among them. I imagine myself stopping it. I do something.”
Hermione smiled. “You would have, Draco. I know.”
It was a while before she spoke again. “What would you say to her, if you could?”
He thought for a moment, trying to find the right words. But as he lay there, he realized he had endless options and a choice.
“For one, that in spite of everything she did to me, she didn’t win in the end. I’m not at all like the person she wanted me to be. The one she tried so hard to make me into.”
He kissed their joined hands, and repeated her question back to her. “What would you tell her?”
She sighed, and seemed to hesitate, but he scooted closer and let her curl into his side, giving her a moment to compose herself.
“I would tell her that she did succeed,” she said and Draco froze until he felt the reassuring press of her hand in his. “She did succeed in breaking me that day. But she didn’t destroy me. She could carve that word into my heart and it wouldn’t matter, now, because I know who I am. I know who you are. And that will always be enough.”
oOo
He stared at her from his seat at the bar, watching her speak to Ginny Weasley in such an animated way it was impossible to keep his eyes off of her.
No doubt she was telling her friend about Draco’s latest infraction of talking through an entire film she’d showed him the night before. Her hands were moving as quickly as her mouth, and she rarely stopped to take a breath.
Things were good. Great even. And it was wonderful to really feel it now. To know that it was solid and true.
Bellatrix still came for them at night, but the frequency waned and her hold didn’t seem so indefinite now.
They would be ok.
He smiled.
“Draco, are you even listening to me?”
A voice he’d known since boyhood filtered through his besotted brain.
“What? Oh, sorry, Pans. I must have zoned out for a moment.”
He didn’t take his eyes off of Hermione as he gave his excuse, and Pansy followed his line of sight over her shoulder.
The click of her tongue signaled her annoyance, but that was nothing new. “It’s always her, isn’t it? Gods, Draco, you’re completely useless.”
Across the room she caught his eye and smiled in return.