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The first time it bled was during the final battle.
Harry had just explained to her and Ron that he was a horcrux. And she knew before he spoke it aloud; this meant he had to die too. He’d walked into the forest alone, and she had sobbed into Ron’s shoulder.
It was Ron who realized something was wrong. “Hermione? Why is your jacket wet?” They’d been down in the Chamber of Secrets surrounded by water, of course. But a drying charm had fixed that.
She had pulled her arm away from him, the one he pointed out as wet, to see a pool of blood staining her jacket.
“Fuck!” Ron had exclaimed. “You need to see a healer.”
“There’s no time for that. We have—we have a job to do now. If Harry is gone... We have to end this, Ron.”
Ron had pinched the bridge of his nose, torn between Hermione’s well-being and the war effort they’d fought with for so long. “At least let me bandage it so you don’t lose any more blood.”
The second time, she was on the stand in her own trial.
The Ministry of Magic had determined that, in order to appear neutral in the aftermath of the war, everyone involved would stand trial, regardless of affiliation. The most high-profile cases had stood trial first: Harry; then Ron; and now herself.
She had been reassured that these trials were mostly political theater for the members of the community who had remained decidedly neutral. But that didn’t prevent her from having a list of charges against her: petty theft, misuse of an obliviation charm, misuse of an extension charm, brewing illegal potions, burglary of Gringotts, animal or creature endangerment, identity theft, breaking and entering a classified space, education abandonment, exposure of magic to muggles, and underage use of magic. Even she had been surprised with the number of laws she’d apparently broken. Perhaps the most outrageous to her was the creature endangerment. How had chaining a dragon to the ground of an underground bank been acceptable but breaking said dragon free was not?
The Wizengamot had been drilling her with questions, ironic since many of them would still need to stand trial themselves, when a loud gasp cut through the chamber.
“Your honor, it would appear that the defense needs to call a recess,” a voice from the Wizengamot had called out.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Our current witness, Ms Granger, she is heavily bleeding.”
Everyone’s attention turned abruptly to Hermione. And sure enough, she was bleeding through her cardigan, a nasty brownish red stain nearly the length of her arm.
That time, she’d fainted.
The third time it bled, she was testifying in the defense of Draco Malfoy.
It would have been smarter to simply write a letter of testimony as Harry and Ron had. It was what she had done for many of the other trials she’d been subpoenaed for. But Malfoy’s felt different. Perhaps more important.
While she would happily watch every other Death Eater or associate get thrown into prison, it didn’t feel right to watch Malfoy receive the same fate. After all, he was her age. They’d sat in the same classrooms together for six years of their lives. They were enemies by birthright. But if her violations of the law had been forgiven because of her age, he deserved the same mercy.
Yes, what he’d done had been worse. His charges were more severe: domestic terrorism, attempted assassination, attempted murder, use of an imperius curse, use of a cruciatus curse, aiding and abetting career criminals, conspiracy, hate crimes against muggleborns, exposure of magic to muggles, and underage use of magic. The standard punishments for such crimes were much more severe than what she’d faced.
But he had not killed. His soul was still pure. And at the last minute, he’d deflected. It didn’t matter if it was simply to save his own skin, as the prosecution had insisted. What mattered is that he had. And he’d failed to identify her, Harry, and Ron when they had been captured, a catalyst for their success.
So at least for this trial, written testimony wasn’t enough. At least not on her conscience.
She’d already finished her testimony and had been dismissed back to the benches. But she could feel eyes tracking her. Glancing around the room, she found only one person staring: the defendant himself.
But the crack of a gavel interrupted the proceedings. “We will be taking a recess on behalf of a medical emergency.”
As the benches emptied, that’s when she had realized. She was the medical emergency. Her arm was bleeding again.
Hermione had studied arithmancy in school. She knew the magical properties of numbers. So, after the third time, she hoped the bleeding would be no more.
After the seventh time, when she’d started bleeding in the middle of N.E.W.T. exams during the mandatory eighth year, she lost that hope.
It was finally sinking in. Her skin would be forever marred by the word ‘mudblood’.
And she could have lived with that. She had found that owning a slur, taking it back for oneself, eased the sting from it. And scars were treatable. Perhaps they’d never go away completely. But there were both magical and muggle remedies that could lessen the appearance.
But a cut that would always bleed...
That was a different beast entirely.
As the years passed, the bleeding lessened.
It wasn’t because of healers. Healers had been able to do little for her. She’d been prescribed creams. Potions. At-home spells. Nothing helped. Not really.
It wasn’t because of her preparedness. In fact, if anything, preparation seemed to have the opposite effect. The more she planned, the more she anticipated the wound reopening, the more likely it was that it would. Hermione hated prophecies, bollocks magic that they were, but her cut had become a self-fulfilling one. She tried to simply forget. But that was impossible, too.
It was always there. Scabbed. But waiting to bleed.
At Graduation, on the ceremonial boat ride back across the lake.
In Australia, searching for her parents.
At the sight of dark forests.
In coffee shops that were just a bit too still.
No, what lessened the bleeding was a retreat. Out of the world she’d spent her teenage years in. Away from the magic that had given so much but had taken more away.
Separating her name from the burden it held, of being the brightest witch of her age, felt like the ultimate bandage. She didn’t want to be bright anymore. Her knowledge, that she’d once seen as power, had become nothing more than a devastating, crushing weight she only wanted to outrun.
And for nearly ten years...
She did.
Hermione had just turned twenty-eight.
Magic was a minor part of her life. She could never erase it entirely. But she’d devoted her practice to the most useful of charms, mastered them wandlessly so it became a mere extension of herself. Like breathing, it was something she did to exist.
Feeling as though her brain had betrayed her, she instead sought out something that could disconnect her from her past life. And she found it in the theater.
With every new character she adapted, she was able to pull a little farther away from Hermione Granger. She’d started backstage. She could move set pieces. Control stage lighting.
Which turned into filling in for missing actors in minor supporting roles.
Which turned to being cast herself for minor roles.
Her first leading role was Dorothy Gale.
She found it poetic that tonight was the opening night of her most recent leading role as Elphaba Thropp.
Both characters shared similarities with her. Outsiders in a land of magic. Like Dorothy, she’d fallen into the world unexpectedly. But like Elphaba, she’d tried to use her difference as strength. And like Elphaba, that had only led to grief.
So really, she shouldn’t have been surprised when, as she was released from the suspension wires at the end of Act 1, her arm began to bleed.
A trip to urgent care had not been her choice. At the end of the performance, all she had wanted was to slink back to her flat, cry herself raw in the shower, before climbing into bed.
Her cast mates had other plans.
Always concealed with a charm, her friends and coworkers were unaware of the word marring her skin. So, they were rightfully alarmed when the bleeding started.
It had since stopped. Her costume was being treated to remove the blood stains. She had showered to wash away the green makeup. (Which was actually a charm she used on her skin, though she kept that to herself). And they had snuck her out a back door, away from the crowds expecting autographs and photos to a vehicle waiting just for her. She checked her bandages again and found they were still dry, though the scar on her was angry and red. She could have gone home. This was all unnecessary.
Sitting in the waiting room, a bandage wrapped tightly around her arm, she noticed a familiar looking man. Tall and rather slim, he held himself straighter than most of the other doctors she’d seen rushing through the corridors. His hair was blond, cropped short, and he wore scrubs instead of a lab coat. She would not have thought him to be a doctor if it weren’t for the color-coded attire. His blue clothing did not match the pink of the nurses, the red of the phlebotomists, or purple of the techs.
He was too familiar. But she wasn’t about to point this out. For one, there was always a possibility she was wrong. But two, drawing attention to herself—even through refusal of care from a single employee—was not something she wanted to do.
So, when a nurse called her name, she followed alone. And when the man in the blue scrubs entered the exam room, she lost her composure.
And started to bleed.
He had not pretended she was a stranger. And she couldn’t decide if that was for better or worse. Instead, he’d given her a choice.
“Hermione. I can find you another doctor if that makes you more comfortable.”
“Because you don’t want to touch my muddy blood?” she hissed.
He flinched. Then merely shook his head. “Because my objective is to heal. Not to reopen old wounds. I’m here because of triage. But you don’t have to see me. I can present my refusal as a conflict of interest.”
To her abject horror, she sobbed. Hot tears streamed down her face as she cradled her arm to her chest.
But he didn’t move. Did not leave. Did not offer empty comfort. He passed her a box of tissues and busied himself with her chart.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she whispered after a few moments, when she’d finally caught her breath again.
“You’re bleeding. So yes, you should be.”
“It is bleeding. And it hasn’t in a decade. But if anyone else were to see it...”
His silver eyes flashed in recognition.
“I need to go home. Before I raise suspicion. And that’s also why you cannot leave me to someone else.”
Malfoy nodded. “Then I can treat you.”
She turned away. Of course he wasn’t going to let her walk away with her dignity intact. Not when he had been given a place of power over her. Wasn’t that what he had always wanted?
“If I wanted to hurt you, Ms Granger, I wouldn’t be here hiding as a muggle physician.”
It was the logic that angered her. And it was the logic that convinced her to relent.
He pulled out a pair of gloves from a box on the wall. So unassuming, so… normal.
“You will need to let me see it, Hermione.”
He held out his hand, inviting her to unfold her arm. And she did, but not before noticing his own arm.
Because he wore nothing else beneath his clothing, she could see his bare forearms. And that was exactly the problem. They were bare. Unmarred. Unmarked. Despite what she knew had once been there.
“Where is yours?” she whispered, as he pressed hemostats against the bleeding word.
He met her gaze. His eyes held a sadness she’d never seen before.
She asked again. A bit louder. “Where is yours, Malfoy?”
He shook his head, peeling back the dressing. The blood had dried. But the wound started bleeding anew, in tune with her resuming sobs.
“Draco Malfoy! I know it was there! You had the mark! On your arm! A brand! In the same place where she branded me.”
There was a desperation in her words that she hated. Because it betrayed her vulnerability.
He pressed the hemostats in place more firmly. “It was never meant to last,” he admitted sadly. “That was always a distinction. If the marked ones could be found by something so apparent, they would not be able to hide in plain sight. They would not be able to continue his work.”
He inhaled slowly. Let it out with the same steady control. “The mark faded soon after he was no more.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “No!” she screamed. “No! It isn’t fair!”
He shook his head. “No. It isn’t. It isn’t fair.”
She was bleeding through the hemostats.
Her vision darkened.
And the treatment room went black.
By the time Hermione came to, the wound had been treated, and Draco Malfoy had vanished. How he’d managed to heal her and leave without arousing suspicion, she did not know. But she wasn’t going to draw attention to it. So she’d left quietly, his care instructions in hand. But ignored.
Bleeding was once again a regular part of her life. And as it had before, the more she tried to prepare for it, the more likely it was to reopen.
Some nights, the bleeding was manageable on her own. Nobody was any wiser that she nursed herself in secret on the other side of her dressing room door.
Other nights, the bleeding was obvious to the cast mates who knew her the most. Those nights, her friends would insist she see a doctor. Those nights, she would refuse to see anyone but the blond doctor who only wore scrubs at the urgent care. Because despite who he was... He kept her identity safe.
The sacredness of her true identity became increasingly important to her as the constant bleeding became a threat. In the second month of Wicked, she was forced to confess to Boq, or rather the actor portraying him, when she accidentally revealed to him the bleeding wound. He’d asked what the word meant, where the cut had come from.
She told him the truth.
It was ironic, she thought, that in her own world, her Boq was more realistic to the character in the book they were adapting. On stage, Boq would persecute her for turning him into tin. But like the book character Hermione had grown to love, off stage, he became her friend. Her protector, a guard of the secret she desperately wanted to keep under lock.
Perhaps what frustrated Hermione the most was the irregularity. She couldn’t track it. At times, the bleeding would start during Dancing Through Life, when she was center stage, mocked by her classmates. Other times were much like the first, at the climax with Defying Gravity. Occasionally, the bleeding would start while she stood in the wings, listening to the cries of the cast rallying to hunt her, led by Boq. Or the bleeding would come at the very end, as she sang For Good, imagining Harry was there instead of Galinda.
Some nights, she didn’t bleed. But most nights, she did. Her cast mates suspected the worst. But her Boq would keep secret just how often he was sneaking her away to the urgent care for help.
At the doctor’s office, she refused to see anyone but Dr. Malfoy. For the rest of the staff, they gave up on the argument.
Treatments were filled with seemingly light conversation that dug deeper the longer they persisted.
“What were you doing when the bleeding started?”
“Do you remember the last time it bled ten years ago?”
“This is what happened in the court room all those years ago?”
Some nights, she refused to entertain him with answers. So the roles would reverse.
“Do you do any magic at all?”
“Why did you choose urgent care?”
“Why do you wear scrubs while the rest of the doctors wear dress clothes and a lab coat?”
His answers often surprised her. But they all came back to the same reason: to help the people he’d previously hurt. Even his choice in clothing she realized was doing the same thing she’d been doing. He didn’t want to stand out. He wanted to blend in. In scrubs, he did.
“Hermione,” he began one night as he went through the routine of cleaning her wound. “I can sit here every night and wipe away blood, clean the skin, treat the swelling, and send you on your way. But as long as you ignore why it keeps happening, it’s never going to truly heal.”
She turned her face away from his penetrating gaze. “It was never supposed to heal, Malfoy. Just as yours was never meant to stay.”
A moment of silence passed between them, the hum of electricity buzzing in her ears.
“It will never go away. That much is true. And I’m sorry. I may not have cut it, but I watched it happen. I hold responsibility for everything that happened to you.”
“It will heal. All wounds do. But you won’t let it.”
She pulled her arm away. “It’s been ten years. I have to face the music. It won’t heal and it’s out of my control.”
He held his hand out, waiting patiently for her to put her arm out for him again. When she finally did, he continued speaking. “You’ve kept track of every flare, have you not?”
She rolled her eyes. “I told you I have.”
He met her gaze. “Then I’m asking you to do something that I know will hurt. Go through your record and think about what was going on each time the cut reopened. Because I agree… it’s time for you to face the music. But right now, you’re trying to find the wrong tune.”
Hermione had sobbed over the new stack of notes.
And then she’d texted Boq—or at least, the actor who portrayed him. She wanted someone to know what had happened.
And then she’d called in sick. Her understudy would play Elphaba tonight.
And then, with her arm bandaged, she called for a taxi to take her to urgent care.
The staff had seen her so often, they no longer asked questions. She suspected their utter lack of concern for her numerous trips had been magically induced. But it was for the best. Because as soon as she’d been checked in, she was taken to a room.
Draco entered her exam room about ten minutes later. “You’re early today.”
It wasn’t a question. He had proven himself a connoisseur of patterns, just as she was.
At first, she didn’t answer. And he didn’t press.
When he returned with a clean pair of gloves and an anti-inflammatory cream, she found the courage to speak.
“I did the homework you gave me.”
She glanced up and met his gaze. There was a slight smile in his eyes. “Homework, was it?”
She inhaled a shaky breath. “You were right. It did… it hurt. It really hurt.”
“It might help to state your findings out loud.”
He spoke as if he was suggesting she present a dissertation. And the absurdity of it was almost enough to have her laughing.
Instead, she asked, “Your name tag says you’re a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Dr. Malfoy. I didn’t realize you fancied yourself a shrink.”
Malfoy smirked. But it wasn’t the cruel sneer of their teenage years. It was softer. Brighter.
“To attend medical school, I needed a bachelor’s degree in something. Psychology seemed like a good place to start.” He shrugged. “To be honest, it was the original goal.”
“You found the pattern I couldn’t.”
He shook his head. “I found the pattern you’ve tried to ignore.”
With an unexpected tenderness, he brushed his fingers over the bandages on her arm. “This… is more than a physical wound. I can’t begin to explain how it happened… but it’s magically attuned to you.”
“It’s a physical manifestation of an emotional wound.”
“Indeed. Which isn’t something I can heal. But it is something that, with time and the right therapy, you can.”
She left shortly later. But she didn’t take the taxi home.
The taxi driver couldn’t get her to her destination. But he could get her close.
“Can you take me to Grimmauld Place?”
Perhaps the best place to start was with the person she sang to every night. Because, despite all the pain and grief, Harry had changed her… for good.
At times, when she least expected it, the word would bleed crimson against pale flesh. But not as often. And under her control.
Her production would be on hiatus for the summer. It was a much-needed break. A few months to shed the green skin of Elphaba, to step into the golden halo of Hermione Granger again.
It would hurt. She knew that. The word on her arm would bleed. But she had Harry on one side and Boq—or at least the actor who played him—on the other. Together, they bridged her two worlds, provided the scaffold she needed on the journey to heal. If she bled, she knew where to find Draco. And at the end, Elphaba would be there like a favorite cardigan.
It was poetic then, that the last night of the season, she was bleeding.
Not from the scar this time.
From tripping over that blasted time dragon.
The Time Dragon was a prop unique to their production, a blink-and-you-miss-it device for announcing the death of the witch in the opening number.
Hermione had tripped over it as she left the stage at the end of Act 1.
She was now too recognizable to sneak out the back door. So a doctor was summoned to come to her.
He found her in her dressing room, sitting between her past and her present, with her leg propped up on a table.
He froze in the doorway. “You’re green.”
Hermione sighed. “Alright may as well get this over with,” she recited playfully. “No, I am not seasick. Yes, I have always been green. And no, I didn’t eat grass as a child! Ugh!”
“Dear Dr. Malfoy. I present to you Miss Elphaba Thropp, heir to the Governor of Munchinkinland!” Boq introduced just as playfully.
Draco smiled. “My apologies, Ms Thropp. I did not realize all this time I’ve been treating royalty.”
Beside her, Harry tensed. But the moment was fleeting.
So she was able to relax.
“I’ve heard your bleeding again.”
“It’s a different wound. I tripped over a metal prop. It took a bit of skin off my ankle. And everyone here is convinced I have a blood disorder.”
“It’s not a problem. I can take a look. Just to be sure. Are you updated on your tetanus vaccine?”
The visit was easy. Relaxed. Until she noticed his arm.
He was insisting she take the vaccine since hers was out of date. He’d brought one with him, anticipating it might be needed, given the nature of her injury.
“Can I have a moment with Dr. Malfoy in private?” she asked her two companions softly. “And once he finishes, I’ll shower off the green and get ready to leave.”
Harry was a bit more hesitant to leave. But eventually he did, with a kiss on her head.
And then she was alone with Draco.
“How are you with needles?” He was putting on a pair of exam gloves. And she was unsure if he understood why she’d wanted him alone or not.
She removed the color charm from her skin. “I’ve been through worse.”
But she shook this distraction from her mind.
“Draco… Your arm.”
He was already disinfecting the skin of her shoulder where the muscle was thickest.
“What about it?” His eyes flashed toward her. So he did know.
She grabbed his wrist and pulled it toward her.
It had been ten months. She’d seen him almost weekly for most of that time. But she’d never seen this during those visits.
And that was what startled her. Because for the past ten months, it was gone. His forearm had been bare. But here it was, right in front of her, impossible to miss. The dark mark.
He eased his wrist out of her hand and took her arm in his hand, gentle as ever.
“What are you thinking, Hermione? What are you feeling?”
She winced at the pinch of the injection needle. She certainly felt that.
But that’s not what he was asking. How dare he turn this into a therapy session.
“You lied.”
He met her gaze as he smoothed a bandage over the injection site. “I didn’t.”
“Malfoy?! I’m looking right at it!” She felt a sting in her sinuses and moisture in her eyes.
Once he’d removed his gloves, he held out his arm in front of her, close enough to touch.
“I never lied to you. The real mark is gone. It faded after his death.”
Without permission, she reached forward to touch it. But he seemed to expect this.
“It’s a tattoo,” she mused aloud.
He nodded firmly.
“When did you do this?”
A corner of his mouth curled up. “My first semester of university. Almost ten years ago.”
She shook her head and a few tears sprung free. “No. No, that’s not possible! I would have seen it by now. I—”
“You’ve only seen me in the clinic,” he disagreed. “My clinic director requires any body ink to be concealed. Especially on her doctors.”
“Why?” she cried, finally allowing the release of her tears. “I’ve spent ten years... Ten years trying to forget this...” She held up her arm, where the word ‘mudblood’ was once again bleeding. “Ten years, Malfoy. Trying to forget this. Contemplating how to get rid of it! And you just... put yours back on?”
He donned a new pair of gloves as if it was no big deal. Then, he pressed a piece of gauze firmly against the wound. “You’ve been trying too hard to forget. And that’s why it won’t leave you alone.”
He met her watery gaze. “I chose mine. You didn’t get a choice. And it never felt... fair... that I could walk away like it never happened.
“This,” he said, uncovering the cut on her arm for her to see. The skin around it was irritated again. “Is because of the choices I made. And I can’t let myself forget that. So, I chose to make mine permanent. As a reminder that actions have consequences. And sometimes, there are other people taking the consequences for you.”
With a strip of wet gauze, he cleared away the dried blood. “Look at it, Hermione. Take a breath and actually look at the cut on your arm. Like you just did with my tattoo.”
He held her wrist in his hand, as she’d done with him moments before. She glanced down, at first only tracking the movement of his glove-covered fingers rubbing soothingly over her pulse. But then she followed his lead, looking at the cut on her arm.
Hermione realized then that in ten years, she’d never truly looked at it. She knew it was there. She knew what it said. But she’d never examined it further.
The lines that made up each letter were jagged. Raw. Only as straight as the blade that made them. They overlapped in places. Didn’t quite touch in others. But they were thinner than she’d realized. Not nearly as deep as she had believed.
The skin was red and irritated from the bleeding. But not unexpected from a fresh cut.
And that’s what surprised her the most. It didn’t look old. It looked as new as the day she’d gotten it. As if it had never healed.
Draco spoke as if he’d been following along with her thoughts. “By pretending it isn’t there, you’re letting it control you. Acknowledge it... and you take that power back.”
She glanced up and met his gaze. “It looks new. Has it looked like that all this time?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He shook his head and gave her a soft smile. “When I first saw you in the clinic, it looked much worse.”
He finished up, sealing it with a bandage. “I’m not a healer, I’m a doctor. So there are gaps in my knowledge. But I believe, if you let it, it will eventually seal. Stop the bleeding. Scar over for good. But you can’t keep running from it.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m off for the summer. And I’ve decided... While I have the time... I’m going to go back. To face what I’ve been running from. Or at least to try.”
“It’s going to hurt, Hermione. But don’t pull away. Push through it. Just like you have every time I’ve cleaned this wound.”
“You’re a hypocrite, Draco. Telling me to go back while hiding yourself.”
He held his hand out toward his medical bag on the floor, summoning an envelope.
She took it when he offered it. It was a letter of acceptance to the healing residency at St. Mungo’s.
“I’m not going to run anymore. I’m not leaving the clinic. But I’m not going to hide either.”
It was the first curtain call of the new season. But before Hermione took to the stage for her bows, she was stopped by a member of the theater staff. “Ms Granger, you have a guest in your dressing room.”
She nodded her understanding as Fiyero—or at least the actor who played him—pulled her out on to the stage. And she wondered who the visitor could be.
It had been a long summer. Harry stayed with her the entire time, an anchor as she faced everything she’d run from. She’d reconnected with Ron and the rest of his family. She’d visited Neville at Hogwarts, now that he was a professor. She’d visited too many graves. Braved the Ministry of Magic. And the coverage in the Daily Prophet that had come with it.
But she found an unexpected but welcome reprieve from the barrage of attention as she shared the limelight with the same man she’d been hiding with the past ten months.
Their paths never crossed. But there was enough published about him that she knew what he was up to.
Draco Malfoy had been right. Going back and facing everything had hurt. Like reopening an awful wound. But every new day was easier than the last.
When she charmed her skin green, this time, she wasn’t leaving the reputation of ‘brightest witch of the age’. This time, the brightest witch of the age was embracing Elphaba and the lessons she’d learned from her.
Hermione pushed the door to her dressing room open with impatience. And a familiar blond head turned to face her.
She smiled. “Draco.”
He grinned. “Miss Elphaba. It’s a pleasure to see you again. In the flesh and not just a moving photograph.”
“And you out of those hideous green robes.”
He smirked. “Careful, Granger. Those hideous green robes have a striking similarity to the current color of your skin.”
His expression sobered. “How are you? Really?”
“I’m okay. It was hard to be back at first. I was so scared. But… I had Harry with me. And the rest of my friends. They were happy to see me.”
She started to reach toward him, but then thought better of it, letting her hand fall to her side. “Knowing you were there too—seeing what you were up to when it wasn’t my face on the front page—it made it easier. I wasn’t in the spotlight on my own.”
“There were a lot of people who were less than enthusiastic to see me. Especially in healer robes. And there were a lot of reparations to be made, though I realize I can’t take back what I did in the past. I kept up with you, too. With the Prophet. You may not have noticed, but the photographs showed that you were healing.”
She pushed up the sleeve of her costume and offered out her arm. There was the word. But it wasn’t a cut. It was a scar.
“It’s not perfect. Sometimes it still bleeds.”
“But it’s scarred. Never gone. But healing.”
“Thank you, Draco. For healing me. And not just my mark.”
He brushed his fingers against hers. This time she did take his hand. He pulled her closer, close enough their arms were pressed against each other. Her scar against his tattoo.
He shook his head. “I didn’t heal you, darling. You did that yourself.”
He’d given her the tools to heal herself. Her mark would fade. His tattoo never would. She couldn’t erase her past. So he wouldn’t either.
“I did watch the production tonight. You were brilliant. And you, Ms Granger, are indeed defying gravity.”