Anchor and Rose | Dramione

Twelve.

The next time Draco departed the safe house was a few days later.

He had come back clutching his arm and his eyes were stained with ruby. Not only that-he looked brittle, his skin was even paler than usual and his fingers twitched absentmindedly as he stumbled in through the door that was still cracked from where Hermione had hexed him against it.

Once again, he refused to answer any questions Hermione had to ask about his excursion without her. He simply departed to his room and stayed there for hours, only reappearing to coldly brush past her in the hallway and take a bottle of water from the fridge. He then disappeared upstairs again.

Draco had not mentioned Hermione's nightmare from a few days prior. She knew he had been watching as she woke with heavy pants and watched as she doubled over to retch over the side of the sofa, but he did not mention it.

She knew he wouldn't have given her the satisfaction of thinking he cared.

Could it have even been considered a nightmare? It was not a particularly frightening dream. It had been simply...strange. It seemed too realistic. Too true. The way she trembled when she woke had let her consider it to have been a nightmare.

The tingling wand in her hand when she woke made her consider maybe it wasn't a dream after all.

Maybe it was a memory.

Just like how Tom Riddle's diary had slipped Harry into a state of unbinding unconscious of Tom Riddle's memories in their second year at Hogwarts.

Hermione struggled to remember what Harry's exact explanation of that experience had been. But once again, Harry was a child at the time. His words had been fumbled and rushed and worried.

It was hard to decipher clearly and know what was the truth.

It all didn't sit perfectly in Hermione's mind. Something seemed off. Something seemed strange.

Something felt like Dark Magic.

"Any reason you're sitting there wallowing like a gnome?" Draco's voice wafted through the air and cracked the tension Hermione had created with a harsh snap. "Feeling sorry for yourself again?"

She peered up at him as he entered. His white hair was hidden by the black beanie he wore frequently when they first met at the hotel. It had grown a little longer since then and the stands that fell by the nape of his next were slightly waved. Crossing the kitchen, she watched him pull a bottle of Firewhisky from his coat pocket and slide it into one of the dusty cupboards.

Remembering his words a few days prior to her being uptight and needing to get drunk flooded her mind. She didn't believe he was actually being serious. Yet somehow she was thankful.

She really did need it.

"None of your business." She shrugged. She was still angry at him from the way he behaved outside of the strange house with the plumbs. "Keep your nose out."

He was venomous. He was evil. She continued to remind herself of that every-time he spoke to her because her brain kept threatening to forget it.

"Good thing i don't give a fuck, anyway." He shrugged back, matching the anger hidden in her words within the cracks of his own. "Keep crying to yourself, Mudblood, that'll get you far."

Mudblood.

The word was so tainted. So vicious and so disgusting. Every-time he said it, it reminded her of the bullies at Hogwarts; Of Adrian Pucey tripping her in the great hall while screaming "Dirty Mudblood" in-front of the entire student body. Of Pansy Parkinson pushing her against a wall and whispering "Mudblood Bitch" when a group of Slytherins walked by-She had left Hermione chocolate on her desk the next day, which Hermione refused to believe was an apology.