Haunted Together

Epilogue: The Nightmare Ends

The morning that he and Hermione watched the sun crawl into the sky was the same day he began preparations for the soul-binding ritual. The process was so intricate that he finally understood why his family insisted on betrothals; it game ample time for preparation. But he and Hermione didn't have that much time; Draco suspected he had about a month, give or take a few days, before he succumbed to the poison.

Within two weeks, he was coughing blood.

He did his best to keep this from Hermione, but when she didn't leave his side except for work, that made things a bit difficult.

"You're sure you don't need anything more? Tea? Vitamins? Sandwich?" She was furiously applying product to her hair before throwing it in a bun and rushing to the Ministry. It was about to be her third late instance this week, a mark on her record.

"I'm fine, Hermione, I promise," Draco forced, holding out her coat and helping her into it. "Don't let Malick stomp on your defense this morning. The Morgan case is an important one even if that oaf can't see it."

Hermione clicked her teeth together and tossed a glare at Draco over her shoulder. "He'd be more likely to believe it if you were there to defend your case yourself. I'm sure they'd let you come back on a part-time basis."

Draco kissed Hermione's forehead and rushed her to the door. "Yes, yes," he murmured, "I'll get right on that as soon as I put some makeup on to cover my ghastly complexion."

She was gone with a loud crack as she apparated away. For some reason she banned apparition within her loft, something Draco contributed to her relationship with Weaselbee and Potter. In the time he had spent at her apartment, both had tried to arrive unannounced. Probably to make sure that Draco hadn't eaten their precious friend or something. Ridiculous.

Grumbling under his breath, Draco got to his own work for the day.

In the time since his father's removal for rehabilitation, a few things had become apparent. Firstly, the worse Draco's condition became, the worse his dreams. Initially when everything began, he dreamt of the rattle of a dementor's bones, their cloaks scratching against the window pane, the feeling of his heart freezing in his chest... Then it became the actual dementors' presence as the creature stalked towards him. These dreams Hermione was present for during their initial research into the patronus, although he didn't tell her about them.

Lately, however, the dream shifted until the only light in the room came from the golden runes they had seen in the Azkaban cell. Those runes lined the walls of the sealed room of Draco's dreams, no windows or doors in sight. Nothing but darkness, then nothing but the runes.

Now every time he blinked, he saw the runes' sickly yellow glow in the dark space behind his eyelids.

Secondly, any magic made his condition worse. After his wand had broken, he set it aside in an oak box and began using his mother's. Thankfully the wand recognized him, or his magic essence, or however the hell it worked. So the wand cooperated. It vibrated on a different frequency than his own wand, so that took some adjusting in his movements and the force with which he used spells, but it worked and that was what mattered. The only problem was that every time he apparated, every time he tried a simple charm to make his life easier, he could feel the poison spreading through his veins. It's like it was tied to his magic, feeding off of it... It was something he tried not to think about.

Draco apparated to Malfoy grounds, like he did every day, walked around the manor, entered the labyrinth where his father took his last stand, and wove through the corridors until he stepped upon a stone path winding towards the center of the maze. His footsteps were soundless as he closed in on a small fountain, its water long drained and its basin empty. Stepping over the ledge, he reached for the water spout and with a flick of his wrist, dropped baby blue sparks from the tip of his wand into the empty spout. A few seconds passed before a set of tiles aside the fountain base rumbled and shifted, each piling atop another, until a set of stairs was revealed beneath them. Draco stepped out of the fountain and began descending the stairs as quickly as possible. Even that was enough to wind him, so he clutched his side when he came to the bottom.