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“No! You don’t understand!” Hermione screams, her hands like bloody claws reaching through the bars of her newfound cage. It isn’t her blood—dried and caked beneath gnarled nails, staining the pale lines along her palms. No, that would be too simple, too fair. No, this blood belongs to her best friend.
Her captor doesn’t respond, his face unreadable behind an iron mask. She doesn’t need to see his eyes or read his mind to know what he’s thinking, though, as he steps out of arm’s reach and very deliberately makes a show of drawing his wand to aim at her throat.
Understanding this is likely the only warning she’ll ever get, she blanches, immediately pulling her arms back into her cage. She wraps them protectively around herself, attempting a steadying breath—one meant to compose, to deescalate.
“Please,” she tries again, voice hoarse.
His only answer is a flick of the wrist, a nonverbal spell sent intentionally wide. It just barely glances off the collar of her blouse before cracking against one of the stones lining the wall behind her.
Stunned, she whips around, heart hammering as her hands fly up to her throat—several beats too late, to survey for damage—when a gratingly familiar voice cuts through the dark.
“Bloody hell, Granger! Would you give it a rest?!”
It comes from a dimly lit corner of the cell and is tinged with a hint of amusement. She spins to face him, heart racing as a multitude of emotions rush through her: shock, confusion, annoyance, relief. It’s the last one that truly leaves her reeling as she stares into a set of stormy eyes she swore she’d never see again. He’d been lost to this war, or so she’d heard—just another name among their fallen year. Just like the boy whose blood still stained her hands.
Malfoy.
And she’s so glad that her body moves on its own, because she can’t account for what’s happening until it’s already done. One moment she’s being shot at by her guard, the next she’s flung herself into the arms of the first living, breathing, familiar face she’s seen in nearly a fortnight.
To his credit—even in his state of shock, frozen limbs and wide eyes giving him away—he catches her. And she clings to him, arms winding around shoulders broader than she remembered, face buried in the crook of his throat. She breathes him in, that familiar scent of parchment and peppermint that once sent her stomach roiling in disgust, but now only makes her want to weep.
Weep for him and for her, and for every child soldier, every loved one either of them has ever lost for the sake of this godforsaken war. All the tears she’d swallowed and bit back spring forward and spill down her cheeks, staining the grey jumper he’s wearing—one that may have been a more vibrant color once, but now nearly blends into the rest of him, dulled and coated in the same layer of whatever clings to their cell, and even to the air surrounding them.
In his shock, he allows it, not moving even an inch as her body shakes with sobs and curves around his. If not for the steady thrum of his heart, pressed flush against hers, she may have wondered whether he was a statue, or a gollum carved and placed here by the Order as further retribution for her sin.
Strangely enough, the thought serves as a comfort to her—the idea that she’s been deemed worthy enough for those sorts of tricks—that she’s able to calm herself, to match her breathing to his, to slip into a sliver of time and space where the ache in her chest doesn’t hurt quite as badly.
Her sobbing quiets, no longer shaking her entire frame. As she stills, he seems to come back to life, his muscles thawing, his hands falling from around her as if she’s burned him. As if he’s only just now woken from some horrible dream. As if to wake her from a finally pleasant one.
She’s reminded of her mother standing at the foot of a twin-sized bed, trying to rouse her from sleep. Dreams had been far sweeter than reality then, too. And just like then, she can’t help but try to fight it for just a moment longer, too lost in the relief of release to immediately relinquish her hold on his stiffening shoulders.
She finds herself surprised to admit—even internally—that she doesn’t want to let him go. She squeezes her eyes shut, squeezing him just a bit tighter. A moment longer. Until finally, she feels him reach around, his fingers firm at her wrists as he manually disentangles himself.
And so she allows it.
She finally steps away, shame coloring her cheeks, eyes falling to the scuffed toes of his dragonhide boots.
They stand in silence for a beat, and she uses the moment to beat down the embarrassment of having just quite literally thrown herself at him.
She can feel his eyes on her, cataloging every minute detail, and wonders what he must make of her: former witch of the age. Now she stands in a cell wearing tattered robes and filthy stockings, with dirt caked into matted curls and hands coated in someone else’s blood. Her face burns, eyes stinging, as she tucks the evidence of her failure behind her back and risks giving him a once-over as well.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that he seems rather worse for wear, especially considering that they’re cellmates. Yet, as she really studies him, Hermione is horrified at the state of him.
He’s dressed in rags, which she suspects may once have been Muggle attire. His grey eyes are hollow, hung over patches of purple that seem permanently etched into his skin. Those are the only traces of color, of life, anywhere on him. Even his silver-blonde hair is so coated with grime that it matches the rest, hanging so long it brushes against his collarbones, which jut out farther than she remembered from their time at Hogwarts. Farther than they should.
A lump rises in her throat, her heart hurting. Without thinking, she reaches for him again, bloody fingers extending toward his throat—and then, before she even understands what’s happening, the cool stone of the cell wall presses into her back. Malfoy’s hand grips her neck, pressing until her head spins and her lungs burn.
“Did they send you in here to finish me, Granger?” he asks, mocking, breath warm as it fans over her face.
“N-no,” she sputters, hands clawing desperately at his wrists.
“Why then!” he demands, rage flaring in an instant, madness gleaming in his grey eyes.
She would respond—she really would—only she can’t. She can’t form the words, can’t feel her lips, and her vision starts to darken along the edges. Her limbs flail wildly, but nothing breaks his vice-like grip—until her leg snaps up. Both of them double over: she gasping for air, he trying not to faint from the shock.
“Bloody hell, Granger,” he mutters, voice rough.
“Bloody hell yourself,” she snaps, hand going up to massage her sore throat. “What was all that even about?” she demands.
“Don’t play dumb with me; it doesn’t suit you,” he says, eyes narrowing.
“Well, being a brute certainly doesn’t suit you either,” she fires back.
“How am I a brute for defending myself from some half-deranged ex-fugitive?” he hisses, closing the distance between them again so that they’re nearly nose to nose.
“That’s rich, coming from a bloody Death Eater!” she retorts.
He flinches, face twisting like she’s kicked him again, before flattening into a neutral mask. “I—I,” he begins, eyes hard, fingers flexing at his sides, “Point taken…”
“I… I didn’t mean—” she falters, caught by the hollow look in his eyes, by the guilt she feels bubbling up.
“It’s fine. You’re right. I’m a Death Eater and you’re a blood traitor. Opposite sides and all that.” She opens her mouth to speak again but he stops her, “Which raises the question, why on earth are we locked in here together?”
His silver brows knit together as he gives her another once-over.
The answer is obvious, she wants to say. They think she’s like him, she wants to say. Only she isn’t. She doesn’t. She just lets him go on with his theories and musings. Grateful that he seems gracious enough to ignore the red staining her hands and her clothes and her conscience. The same way that she’s ignoring his mad eyes and his scarred arm and his Muggle attire.
They go on that way talking and not talking, crying and lying and hiding bits of themselves that they’d rather not face. It’s a comfort and a curse, a shame and a gift, one that goes on giving.
The healing doesn’t happen overnight. There are too many questions and not enough answers even between the two of them: some of the brightest wizards of the age.
At the mention of Harry, her heart constricts, her airway tightening so that all she can manage is not to lose consciousness.
Similar things happen whenever he mentions his mother—remembers what they did to her.
So she doesn’t pry and neither does he. Not really. She only swallows and blinks up at him, cursing silently when the tears spring free again, carving trails through the dirt smeared across her face.
And he only mutters, rubbing at the wetness with impatient thumbs. “You’re a mess,” he says, no real malice—only matter-of-fact, tight as the stone walls around them, a hint of something else just beneath the surface.
Pity, maybe. Same as the tiny circles she rubs into his back and the sweet kisses she only presses to his brow while he sleeps.
It’s a thing they’d never dare to say out loud. The one thing that never fails to get either of them going: freezes over all the tears till they’re ice, till they’re fire, till they’re boiling over in a way that sometimes seems on purpose.
’Cause he gets that crooked grin that twists up until it’s a sneer and she’ll pile her clumpy curls in a knot atop her head, and they just snap—she’ll say, “Yeah, well… you’ve certainly seen better days.”
“You and I both,” he’ll admit, voice low, grey glowing.
And that’s when they’ll finally get their answer that clicks the rest into place. “I suppose that’s why they’ve thrown us in here together,” she’ll say, chest tight, more tears burning in her eyes. “We’ve both outlived our worth.”