4.1 | Draconian ✓

20 | evanesco

A/N

Here we are, twenty chapters in, thirty more to go. How many of you are still with me?

x Noelle

  

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2 0

e v a n e s c o

Vanishes things.

HERMIONE PACED OUTSIDE the bathroom, wringing her hands as she worried about Draco.

After what seemed like forever, the door opened and Draco stepped out with the telephone in hand. "What're you doing, Granger?"

"I was worried about you." She followed him as he went to set the phone down. "Is everything alright?" She reached out to touch his arm but he flinched away.

"Don't." His voice was low and strangled, and he raised his gaze to hers. "I - " He seemed unable to say anymore and showed her his hands instead.

There was no mistaking the rust-coloured stains that tainted his pale skin. Hermione briefly wondered whose blood it was, then realised that she just needed to be grateful that it wasn't his. She reached over to the table for her wand and held it over his hands, remembering a spell that Blaise had taught her several days ago.

"Scourgify."

The stains vanished from his hands. She stepped forward, but he fended her away. "It's not enough, I just...I need to get it all off."

She didn't stop him this time. He wanted these bloodstains off as much as she wanted some of her scars gone. She watched as he retrieved a fresh set of clothes and headed to the bathroom. It took him a good fifteen minutes before he emerged. He frowned when he saw her sitting in his chair.

"Granger – "

"You need the bed – more than I do tonight," Hermione told him quickly, before he could say anything else. She went over to him, tugging on his arm when he refused to budge and pulling him over to the bed.

"For Salazar's sake – "

"I'll be fine," she shushed him. In spite of his protests, he let her push him down onto the bed. He watched her with an inexplicable gaze as she drew the covers over him. She brushed his hair out of his eyes and rest her palm against his cheek. "I'll get a sleeping draught from the kitchen."

She began to pull away, but his fingers flew up to latch around her wrist, holding her hand still against his cheek before she could. "Don't go," he murmured, and there was a sliver of vulnerability as he stared up at her that made her chest tighten painfully.

Merlin, there were times when she forgot that he was just twenty-one. And that the war had made him just as lost and vulnerable as she was.

"Of course," she whispered, and leaned forward to press her lips gently against his forehead. Then she pulled back, settling down in his chair and holding his hand tightly, glad that she could be the stronger one for once.

"Goodnight, Draco."

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Draco awoke to the sounds of arbitrary explosions – not the loud, devastating kind, but more along the lines of some objects being blasted to bits.