Call Me Psyche - Dramione

10

The third night Draco Malfoy failed to visit Hermione Granger as she kept watch over her campsite in the Forest of Dean, Ron Weasley woke to find her still sitting in the door of the tent. She was silent, watching a hard yellow sunrise through the leafless trees.

Begging her pardon, Ron brushed by her, pulling his jumper over his vest as he stepped into the bracing winter morning, floundering to find the sleeve, his arms visible in sunlight for the first time since he'd returned.

His back facing her, she glanced up in time to spot the spidery red scar on his deltoid. It was alarming enough that she forgot she was still giving him the silent treatment, and she spoke to him.

"Hasn't your arm healed?" she asked.

Ron startled, as if he'd happened upon a rare and wild animal and was wary of scaring it away. "Healed from the splinching?" he said, turning so she could see how dry and stable the marks on his skin had become. "Yeah, thanks to you taking care of it, it's fine. Like new, in fact. I mean, if you don't mind the added character of a bit of scarring." He flexed one more time before succeeding in threading his arm through his sleeve.

She tossed her head, looking away. Ron had good arms – very good arms. He knew it too.

The little attention she'd given him had been enough encouragement to keep talking to her. He sank to a squat at her side. "Harry showed me his new scar from where you had to sever that horcrux from his chest. Nasty business. Said it saved him from running mad though."

She only sniffed.

"I know, I should have been there at Godric's Hollow with you," he said, his voice low, miserable. "Reckon I wouldn't have been much help, but at least I could have helped you muscle Harry around while he was raving afterwards. Anyways, how did you fare in the snake attack? Harry said something about your hand being bandaged up."

Harry had noticed her injury? She was so surprised to hear it that she raised her hand to look at the place just below her wrist where the broken china had gouged it.

The mark was almost gone, but Ron was looking for it all the same, catching her by the fingers and lifting her hand toward his face, squinting at her skin. After not having touched him in weeks, something unbidden, unwanted jolted through her now. His sweetness and gentleness, his long familiarity with the tone and texture of her skin – she had been longing for this through the lonely days and nights after he'd left.

That is, until Draco appeared.

She bit back her natural reactions, hardening herself against Ron Weasley. Everything had changed since the day he left. Now she kept her expression cold, as if unaffected by him.

"That's coming along. Must have done a good job healing yourself," he said, turning her wrist in his grip. "But of course you did." Instead of dropping her hand when he couldn't find a mark, he took it in both of his, holding on, lifting his face to glance at her with his blue, blue eyes. There was that sparkle again – that wordless confession that he loved her, and that apology for being so bad at it.

The confidence in his touch was maddening. Ron had held her hand hundreds of times and it was usually safe territory for him. They'd even slept with their fingers entwined. Draco acted like he didn't think much of it when she'd told him, but she had a feeling he wouldn't like to see her with Ron like this now. She tugged her hand from between Ron's, giving up the comfort and heat of it, turning away from him, and knowing that in doing so, she was turning toward Draco.

She turned even though she knew it was risky to take the chance that she'd see Draco again. He might have missed their visits since Ron returned out of nothing but some inconvenience. It wasn't impossible that he'd be back in her arms, in the dark, warm and laughing, brilliant and hungry for her, in just a few hours. Or maybe something catastrophic was holding him back. With the snake and Voldemort still in his house, it could be anything. It could be permanent. They'd had no news of the outside world for days. The Malfoys could have been slaughtered, for all she knew.