DRAGON'S HEARTSTRINGS || dramione | harry potter

Chapter Thirty

They were back at Draco's cottage. It was dark and the waves were loud and powerful. Hermione's head was spinning so hard the only anchor to reality she still had was Draco's firm body that held her tight. She realized all the horrors she had been through tonight were over, but her body didn't receive that message.

"Can you—" she stuttered with her eyes still closed and Draco's arms still around her. "—let me go—I think I'm—gonna be sick—"

He softly lowered her down until her feet reached the sandy ground. She wobbled unsteadily a few feet away from him, then crouched down as if tortured by cramps and retched, vomiting the little of what she had in her stomach.

Afterwards she remained crouched down, but her retching turned to silent sobs. Her whole life broke in one single moment, and it was all her fault. There was definitely some sort of self-destructive tendency buried deep inside of her psyche that forced her to ruin everything good she had in her life. Tonight, Draco murdered tens upon tens of the good guys, of members of the Order all because he had to save her. She didn't blame him for it, she had no right to do so. She wanted to scream at him, Draco what did you do, why did you do this, do you understand you doomed both of us for the rest of our lives?

But it wouldn't have been fair to put the blame on him. She knew perfectly well what she was doing. She knew how dangerous it was to go where people wanted her dead, where people thought she was a traitor; and she still went because she believed she could fix everything. When was the last time what she did fixed things? Her heroism only made everything worse, including this time. She couldn't expect Draco not to come for her the moment the Stupefy hex stopped working, not when he swore to her that he would always protect her. Part of her wanted him to come for her, part of her knew he would. That part inside her brain, the one she hated so much craved for him to cause chaos and destruction in her name.

Now he did. Now he would never be accepted back into the wizarding society even if they won the war which seemed more and more unlikely every day. The Death Eaters will probably have taken down Hogwarts by morning, and there is no way they will find Voldemort by that time. Who knows how long they will be able to stay at this cottage if the war remains in this limbo state for who knows how long. She promised herself to keep him at her side for as long or as little as they had left. For the first time, she understood his need to have her at arm's length at all times – she couldn't stomach the idea of them being separated again, not when she realized he was her only haven, not when the thought of him getting hurt made her physically ill.

"What did they do to you," he asked, his voice hard as stone.

Hermione turned to him with teary eyes, trying to wipe the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand but only making more mess.

"Nothing too bad," she answered quietly. And then words filled with panic flew out of her mouth on their own accord, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry I left like that... You didn't deserve it... I love you... You deserve better... I'm so sorry I made you do this..."

She realized she threw in the most vulnerable sentence she ever told him in the middle of apologizing, and a long silence stretched afterwards, broken by nothing except Hermione's quiet sobs.

He looked down at her as if witnessing both and incredible marvel and a subject to obsess over.

"You didn't make me do anything. I did it. Don't blame yourself," Draco said finally, his voice calm and steady.

She sniffed. "No, if I hadn't gone, you wouldn't have killed them... We could've been free..."

"I was never going to be free. They were never going to let me go. Neither the Order, nor Voldemort. There was no choice for me only to kill them all."