This Bitter Earth

TWENTY NINE

A/N: Did the last chapter leave you feeling warm and fuzzy? Aww. That's cute. Here we are, at the penultimate chapter. Can you believe it? I can't. We wouldn't be here without your amazing support. I am truly humbled by all the love you have shown to this story and to me.

My thanks to Bree as always for betaing and suffering through my ever changing chapters and also to AdAsttra who doesn't judge my weird comma placements.

Soundtrack- "The Grim Goodbye" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and "Hold On" by Brooke Annibale

TWENTY NINE

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Draco had always been cold. Ever since he was a child, his mother had bundled him up in fine coats and thick clothes. He had hated being in the dungeons at school. The damp got into his bones and stayed there. Some of the only times he felt... right was when he was on a broom, flying out underneath the sun. That was until he started drinking, and then the burn of the liquor replaced whatever he was missing, in more ways than one.

It worked. Until he met Granger.

After her, nothing was enough.

So it was strange that after months of freezing and shivering, he felt warm hands on him again. Soft and small. He knew those hands, but Fake Granger had never felt warm before. Now all he could feel was the warmth from her arm around him, propping his upper body up while also hauling him along... somefuckingwhere.

He didn't know. He could barely even see straight. Everything was spinning. And grey.

And oh look, there was the floor.

"No, Draco!" she called out, the frustration and annoyance clear in her voice. "You can't... Get up!"

She was pulling on his arm and Draco had the thought, the idea, that it should hurt, but he felt... fine. Great, actually. He felt... Hermione's hand closed around his.

"Please," her voice cracked. "Please get up, Draco. We don't have much time and—" Her voice faded, sounding very far away despite the fact that he was pretty sure he wasn't moving.

Fuck it. He'd do it for her.

Draco forced his eyes open and the image of her swam in front of him. "Sweetheart..."

"Yes," Granger said waspishly. "It's still me. And if you don't want to stay here, you have to get up and come with me."

"Come... with you," Draco repeated slowly. The words seemed familiar, but didn't make much sense to him. Still... Granger had always been smarter than him. Maybe they made sense to her.

"Please," she begged, her eyes were... were...

Weren't grey.

They were big and beautiful and... brown.

Like a doe. Like burnt cinnamon. Like...his girl.

The image of her doubled and wavered slightly in front of him, blending in with the stone behind her. Draco tried to blink, tried to focus, but the more he tried, the worse it got until he couldn't tell one Granger from the other.

Had they been brown? Had he really seen that? Had he seen the gaping mouth and empty sockets coming at him? Or was it all some trick she had shown him? There wasn't anything warm in Azkaban, but... hadn't he seen fire? Felt it?

Felt... her? Was this real?

His head hurt too much to figure it out. She'd taken him down into his soul and now she was taking him... somewhere else. Maybe this was another memory. Was she going to show him the Muggle family he'd tortured with his Aunt and Uncle? Granger said they got away but... He hadn't. He wasn't ever getting away. Not from the things he had done. Not from himself.