Mirrored Souls

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/55773598.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Category: F/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov
Additional Tags: Soul Bond, Blood and Violence, POV Draco Malfoy, Angry Hermione
Granger, Pining, Denial of Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Healing,
Complaining Draco Malfoy, Tragic Romance, Star-crossed, Wartime
AU, Forced Proximity
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-05-17 Words: 8,326 Chapters: 1/1
 Mirrored Souls
by senlinyu

Summary

"Haven’t you picked up a Divination book yet?” He gave her a sidelong look. “Oh right,
you don’t believe in Divination. Well, let me tell you, Magic doesn’t particularly like it
when wars span generations. It’s one of its many idiosyncrasies. Eventually it meddles
by binding together two ‘products of the war’, destined in their opposition or something
along those lines, at some point after they reach adulthood. Supposedly this miracle
between us” — he gestured between them—“ is intended to force both sides to finally
see their shared humanity, thereby bringing peace and goodness back to the world.”

This was met with a resounding silence.

Or: In which Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger are star-crossed soulmates, of a sort.

Notes

I had a little spring break and so I thought I'd write something depressing. Mind the tags.

Alpha and beta thanks to Jamethiel, simplifiedemotions, and nocteacakes.

See the end of the work for more notes

“Oh fuck, of course it’s you.”

Draco had no sooner said it than a wave of agony rolled through him. He squeezed his eyes
shut, bracing himself against a tree, hoping for it to pass.

When he managed to reopen his eyes, there was a wand aimed at his heart.

His vision tunnelled, and for a moment all he could see was himself, the silver reflection of
his mask floating on the dark surface of a pair of brown eyes. He blinked hard, trying to clear
his focus, and the desolate surrounding forest seeped back into view. Despair crept through
his veins as the reality of his new circumstances stared straight back at him.

A laugh forced its way past his cracked ribs and up his throat, dripping from his lips along
with all the blood. He reached up and peeled his mask off, revealing his face so he could grin
at her and bare his bloodstained teeth.

“Ah, you haven’t realised yet, have you?” The words came out slow and forced, sounding
almost taunting as he struggled to breathe.

The wand didn’t waver.

Unbelievable.

He’d left a party and took a bombarda in the ribs for this:

Hermione Granger, coated in mud and blood, and crammed against the roots of an old tree,
her wand pointed at him with deadly intent.

The battle was raging near enough that he could hear it. There was an anti-disapparition jinx
a mile wide planted over the area. Dolohov’s idea. To give the werewolves a chance to hunt
down any stragglers once the battle was over.

He didn't need a werewolf to find Granger though — she’d left a blood-blackened trail in the
dirt behind her. Someone, or something, had sliced her right leg clean open. He could see the
white of bone from her hip down her thigh, stark against mangled muscle and sinew.

His stomach threatened to heave.

His own wand handle bit into his palm as he squeezed it, weighing his options, trying to
figure out how he was going to survive the day. Fuck that — how would he survive the next
five minutes?

Granger was on the verge of fainting, her breath shallow as she huddled back, slumped in a
pool of her own blood. Yet she was making a valiant attempt at killing Draco first.

Her mouth was set in a hard line. “Drop your wand —” her voice shook, straining as though
struggling to breathe, “— before I kill you.”
Even faced with Granger’s threat of death, Draco struggled to focus on anything but the
luminously consuming pain throughout his body, like a lumos maxima spell shone straight
into his eyes so that he could scarcely see beyond.

His consciousness was clawing to free itself; every breath sent a bright line of agony
splintering through his mind.

Only a relentless determination to have answers had gotten him there, and he’d be damned if
he was killed for it now. Damned anti-disapparition jinx. Someone really needed to kill
Dolohov before he had any more ideas.

Draco forced himself to breathe, gasping as his broken ribs ground together.

“I wouldn’t kill me,” he managed to rasp. “It would ruin your day.”

He pushed himself off the tree and limped towards her, favouring his right leg.

“S-stop!” Granger choked out, wand-hand shaking, confirming that she was all bluster and
didn’t have the strength to curse him no matter how much she wanted to.

The mud underfoot squelched, threatening his already precarious footing. If he fell, he would
undoubtedly faint.

He stared dizzily down at the ground, noting the dirt, so soaked with blood it became mud.

She must have downed a dozen vials of blood-replenishing potion to bleed this much.

Which meant, his brain sluggishly supplied, her magic was shot.

She seemed to realise he knew because she twisted, trying to crawl away. The movement
wrenched her injured leg so that the wound tore wider.

White-hot agony lanced through Draco’s body.

“Granger, stop fucking moving,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “If I was going to kill
you, I’d just fucking kill you.”

He forced himself to take another step and reached a trembling hand into his cloak, pulling
out a vial of Dittany and shakily tossing it to her.

It landed in the dirt near her hand, and she stared at him in suspicious bewilderment before
her expression turned venomous and she recoiled.

“I’m not touching that.”

He ignored her and pulled out another potion, needing a moment to brace himself before
forcing down a sip. A blissful, numbing relief flooded through him until the pain in his chest
faded to a dull throb.

The agony in his leg remained unabated.

He watched Granger as confusion and then stunned comprehension swept across her face.

A startled, croaking gasp escaped her as she clutched at her own chest, at the place where
Draco’s broken ribs were.

Then she stared at him in stark horror.

“Figure it out now?” He re-stoppered the vial and tossed it down next to the Dittany, looking
at her a moment longer. She looked atrocious, all blood and mud and bravado. “I’ve done my
part, for fuck’s sake, do the same and get out of here. Next time —” he inhaled, resolving
himself, “Next time, I will just kill you.”

He turned and limped away, heading for the edge of the anti-disapparition zone, his right leg
dragging, her injury carving a path of seizing pain along his spine with every step as if he
were also sliced to the bone.

He was twenty feet away when the pain suddenly vanished. Three more steps, and his leg
worked again.

He braced his trembling hands against his knees, inhaling unsteadily several times before he
could straighten and hurry towards safety.

His father greeted his stumbling return to the manor, his face hardening into granite when he
saw Draco’s mask and robes. “You weren’t assigned to today's attack. You hurt your mother’s
feelings when you left her party.”

Draco avoided his father’s penetrating gaze, wrapping an arm protectively around his ribs,
and staring down at his mask. His eyes blended in, silver on silver.

“Duty called,” he said in a dull voice, trying not to think about all the blood, or Granger’s
ghastly expression of horrified comprehension.

He swallowed bitterly. “I need a healer.”

“You.”

There was unadulterated hatred packed into the word.

Granger stood in Draco’s path, wand levelled on his heart and murder in her eyes. She wore a
red cloak, all Gryffindor bravery and lack of stealth. The moon was rising like a giant silver
disk behind her, casting her shadow towards him.

Draco was on an asinine mission to find some rare ingredient that Dolohov had managed to
convince the Dark Lord that he desperately needed.

Thinking it would be a nice little camping trip in Northern Europe and a convenient way to
avoid combat, Draco had volunteered. Instead, it had been a dreadful affair that involved
tramping through an icy and entirely inhospitable wilderness poking through smouldering
dragon bones in search of fire crystals.
He was cold; the scents of rotting dragon flesh and sulphur had practically embedded
themselves in his pores, and there were probably bears nearby.

“Yes, me.” He gave her a once-over. “I’d ask how you are, but I already know. Glad your
ankle finally healed.”

She bristled instantly.

He gave a tight smile, holstering his wand to indicate that mutual self-destruction should be
off the table for the day because who the fuck would want to die in the Norwegian
wilderness?

In an unsurprising demonstration of discourtesy, she didn’t put away her own wand, and
glared at him even harder, as if she might be able to bore into his skull and kill him that way.

“What did you do to me?” she finally asked.

Of course, she thought this was somehow his fault.

Still, this was going to be fun. Something in the Wizarding World that Hermione Granger
didn’t know. Would wonders never cease?

He pressed a hand to his chest, feigning hurt.

“Oh, you still haven’t realised?” He paused for effect, taking immense pleasure in her
aggravation as she waited for him to continue. “We’re soulmates.”

Her expression of anger turned to outright rage. Even in the moonlight, he could see her face
flushing a brilliant red to match her gaudy cloak.

“No! We’re not!” Her loud outburst indicated she was apparently unperturbed by the thought
of bears; she looked so angry he half-expected her to combust.

He wondered vaguely what that would feel like.

He rolled his eyes. “Sorry. Not soulmates, just bound by our souls to feel the other person’s
joy and suffering for as long as we live. Very different. What would you like to call it?”

“Nothing,” she said, her teeth bared.

Scratch that, Draco would rather deal with a bear.

“We’re nothing. I have nothing in common with you. I could never —”

Draco had spent enough time around the Dark Lord to recognise the beginning of a long-
winded diatribe. It was always best to cut them off before they could get properly started.

He cut her off. “Yes. That’s the point. Haven’t you picked up a Divination book yet?” He
gave her a sidelong look. “Oh right, you don’t believe in Divination. Well, let me tell you,
Magic doesn’t particularly like it when wars span generations. It’s one of its many
idiosyncrasies. Eventually it meddles by binding together two ‘products of the war, destined
in their opposition’ or something along those lines, at some point after they reach adulthood.
Supposedly this miracle between us” — he gestured between them — “is intended to force
both sides to finally ‘see their shared humanity, thereby bringing peace and goodness back to
the world’.”

This was met with a resounding silence.

“ You actually believe that?” she asked at last, her face scrunched in simultaneous disbelief
and revulsion.

Draco shook his head. “No,” he said in a tone to communicate that he thought she was a
dunce for even asking. “It's a quote. Of course I don’t believe it. I just know we’re somehow
tied together because that is undeniable. There’s no cure. No solution for this one — I’ve
fucking looked, and trust me, I have better resources than you. There’s loads of myths about
Mirrored Souls, which happen to perfectly describe us. Until you have a better diagnosis, I’m
assuming that’s what it is, so stop waving your damned wand at me.”

“We are not Mirrored Souls,” she said, seething as she paced and waved her wand even more.
“There is no conclusive evidence that they’ve ever existed. Myths are not proof! Clearly —”

Draco sighed and let her rant.

“It must be a spell,” she was saying. “Obviously, someone cursed us. Give me some of your
blood. If I can run some tests, I’m sure I can —”

Circe’s tits. She was never going to stop. Denial was the hill she’d chosen to die on since she
apparently refused to die from anything else.

He turned on his heel and started walking away.

Her ranting cut off.

“Stop! Where are you going?” Her grating voice followed him. “Come back here! I will curse
you in the back, Malfoy. Don’t think I won’t.”

He paused then, glancing back at her, dressed so smartly in her combat fatigues with that
stupid red cloak over the top. She had her wand pointed at him once more, hardened
resolution on her face.

“Really. Tonight? You’re ready?”

She didn’t lower her wand.

Draco sighed, drawing his own wand with a flourish. “Fine.”

He faced her, even bowed as if it were a proper duel, before getting into position and
gesturing lazily.
 “Whenever you’re ready. Let’s see how many times we have to curse each other before you
can admit I’m right. To be honest, I expect we’ll be dead long before then.”

They stood facing each other for several painful seconds. The moon gleamed overhead,
casting the world in silver while Fate held its breath.

Granger’s hand dropped to her side, her eyes uncertain in a way that softened her face. She
grimaced. “I need to do more research.”

Draco smirked and re-holstered his wand. “All bark and no bite. I didn’t think you could.”

Quicker than he could blink, her hand slashed up, and a searing pain cut across Draco’s cheek
before he could throw up a shield. He tripped and fell back, his shoulder slamming into a
rock.

“You fucking — ” he looked up, and she was right there, her wand buried under his chin,
their faces inches apart.

An electric shock sheared beneath the surface of his skin at her sudden proximity. She was so
near. Practically touching him. He could almost feel the heat of her. The world spun madly.

Her expression, however, was ice cold and betrayed none of the pain he knew she felt from
the wound on his face or his bruised back. She carelessly shoved an empty glass vial below
the cut, quickly filling it with blood before she straightened, glancing dismissively down at
him.

“Don’t mistake calculation for mercy, Malfoy,” she said as she slipped the vial into a pocket,
“I am going to kill you. I’m just going to research the best way to do it first.”

“Ready to kill me?” Keeping his voice light and mocking was a monumental struggle as he
walked towards her.

“Sh-sh-shut up —” she gritted out. Her arm was raw to the shoulder with burns and her wand
lay in charcoal ruin on the smoking ground beside her.

Draco had been across the field and had only watched as she shoved her hand so deep down
the throat of a hellhound its fangs grazed her throat, and then tore its burning core out with
her bare hand.

So much for Dolohov’s unstoppable weapon. All those damn fire crystals, all for this
disaster.

Draco couldn’t believe he suffered through a fortnight in Norway just for the hellhound to be
taken down in its first village. Half of which was unfortunately still intact.

He slumped down on the ground beside her, trying to think through the agony wreathing his
own arm. The sky was silvery grey from smoke and the obscured sunlight made the air
almost glow.
He’d thought, during the last year, that his pain tolerance had been thoroughly explored; that
there could not be any further depths of agony that Granger — who seemed to spend all her
time getting injured — could possibly inflict upon him.

It turned out they’d simply plateaued briefly. The experience of hellhound fire burning up
most of Granger’s hand was an entirely new threshold of pain that he never wished to
experience again.

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” he said, forcing himself to inhale, “and I mean that — in the
rudest way possible. I hate you.”

She shuddered where she knelt in the smouldering remains of the hound. The ground had
melted into obsidian around the corpse and reflected Draco and Hermione, shimmering and
distorted, floating in the black.

She was struggling to breathe. Half her clothes were burned off, and her hair was singed to
her shoulders. Any exposed skin not charred and smoking was red with fresh blood.

The air reeked of sulphur and roasted flesh. The only sound was the occasional crack of
burning wood from the nearby houses.

A swath of burnt bodies marked the hellhound’s path of destruction and ended at her feet.

Draco swallowed his pain, occluding it as best as he could as he pulled her unburned arm
over his shoulder and dragged her off the ground.

She gave a ragged scream, tearing open the tenuous hush.

“Shut up,” he gritted out. He refused to faint. “Dolohov will be pissed — and hurt you a lot
— if he gets his hands on you.”

He half-carried her out of the village and to an old barn before finally setting her against the
far wall and catching his breath.

She sat there, trembling all over. Her shoulders shook, and tears escaped her eyes, carving
tracks down her soot-stained face. In an attempt to keep quiet, she’d bitten through her lip.
Soot and drying blood crusted across her chin.

He looked away from her.

He didn’t feel sorry for her at all.

She was an absolute cunt.

Ever since he’d figured out that their souls were mirrored, he’d intentionally avoided getting
injured as much as possible. It wasn’t much of a sacrifice because he was terrible in combat;
murder and violence didn’t particularly play to his strengths. The last thing he needed was for
his injury to distract or disadvantage Granger at an unfortunate time and cause her to end up
crucio ’d or cursed somewhere with lots of nerve endings.
His parents were highly supportive of this quality of self-preservation in their only child, and
so Draco spent most of his time running errands. Dolohov asked most often; he had a
particular penchant for obscure lore which entwined naturally with Draco’s own interest in
researching ‘mythical’ forms of binding magic and how one might hypothetically sever them
without vast personal risk. The other Death Eaters thought Draco was pathetic and cowardly,
but Draco spent so much of his time in pain due to his connection to Granger that he didn’t
really care what other people thought of him.

Granger had no such consideration. In fact, he suspected she injured herself just to spite him
sometimes.

He’d been drinking in a hammock, basking in the summer sun and enjoying an unusual
period of respite, when his entire body had suddenly felt wreathed in flames.

He’d known that the hellhound was being tested that day, and he’d just barely managed to
apparate in time to see Granger kill it.

Of course she had to swoop in and save the day without any consideration to how Draco
would cope with the sensation of being set on fire without warning.

He probably hadn’t even crossed her mind.

Bitch. He was going to kill her someday. He really would.

He was just waiting for the right moment. Ideally when she wasn’t already hurt.

He wanted it to be quick and painless.

Not for her sake, mind you. His.

He had no desire to find out what it was like for her to die until he was the one doing it.

The agony presently numbing his entire right arm was not going to be the last sensation he
experienced.

“We’re lucky —” his own voice shook despite his attempts to sound conversational, “— I’m
left-handed.”

He reached into his cloak, pulling out a vial and his wand.

“Ah, it is you.”

Draco stared at her dim reflection in a puddle of water, wincing at the way his body instantly
reacted at the sound of her voice.

He refused to actually look at her, even though it had been months since they’d last crossed
paths.
He hadn’t worried; he knew she was still alive whether or not he wanted to. He felt her
constantly. She seemed to fight in the front lines of every single skirmish, forcing Draco to
pretend he didn’t feel her bones break, her skin split and burn, and everything else.
Wondering, always wondering, if that would be the day he felt her die — when the bond
between them would finally snap.

Somehow, she always managed to pull through.

However, the separation had been so long he was now viscerally reminded that it was very
different to actually be near her. He could feel the electric frisson of her proximity all the way
into the marrow of his bones and depths of his soul.

Or that might just be all the blood pooling in his skull.

He hoped it was the latter.

His heart was pounding in his temples. His knee was throbbing as all his weight dangled
from one ankle, the coarse rope biting into his skin.

“Fuck off,” he bit out, pushing his robes out of his face to glare at her.

She limped closer. “You should be glad it’s me and not someone else. Brace yourself.”

It was all the warning he got before he suddenly went plummeting to the ground. He barely
had time to protect his head. His back hit the forest floor so hard it knocked his breath out.

“Fuck — you,” he rasped the moment he could breathe again. “Muggle snares?”

“It’s almost funny how easy it is to catch Death Eaters in them.” She sounded breathless
herself as she gingerly seated herself by his knee, and he was made keenly aware of her body
pressed against his — the warmth and softness of it.

“Mm, thought so,” she said airily. “You dislocated it.”

Her voice was light, none of the old anger in it.

By the time he’d managed a passable attempt at healing her hellhound burns, most of her
hatred for him had worn itself out. There were only so many times that she could say she
hated them and wished he was dead while she was wandless and letting him nurse her back to
health.

Not that Draco had stopped telling her about how much he wished she was dead. Although,
he didn’t think it had the same effect when he was saying it while spoon-feeding her chicken
broth and pouring potions down her throat in desperate attempts to make her fever break.

Still, he’d made a point to reiterate daily that he very much despised her, and wished she was
dead, and did not care about her at all , and in fact, he was going to kill her very soon.

Yet, by the end, Granger had seemed immune to the information.

Then she’d left without warning or a word of thanks or a goodbye, running straight back to
the Order so she could get injured some more.

He hated her so much for the way he’d just stood there when he’d found her gone. He hated
her even more for the way he’d wandered around looking for her, even though he knew she’d
left — gone back to her friends once she didn’t need him anymore.

Now he was the one injured and in need of rescuing.

It was humiliating.

The puddle was soaking into his clothes and if his head weren’t spinning, he’d fix his knee
himself; instead, he lay there and let her pull up the leg of his trousers, fighting a shiver as
her fingers brushed the bare skin. Her right hand was covered in burn scars, but they didn’t
seem to interfere much in how she manipulated her wand.

He refused to talk as she muttered a few spells and twisted his leg, sending a sudden wave of
pain clawing up his spine.

He jerked away instinctively.

“Be still, you great baby,” she ordered and pinned him in place.

He pressed his lips together in outrage, feeling far too hot literally everywhere. He was
overheating from the humiliation, clearly. He tried to alleviate it by glaring daggers at her.

He refused to groan as a bone shifted back into the joint. It barely counted on the pain scale
he’d constructed; still, he wasn’t used to it actually being his body that was injured.

She made a whimpering noise that sent a shockwave of heat through his gut. Her fingers
gripped his leg as if it were her own and her hands were terribly warm against his skin.

She sat, panting for a few moments, before she cast a few more spells, pulled his trouser leg
back down, and let go. “There.”

Draco waited and raised an eyebrow. “No pain relief?”

She avoided his eyes. “We’re a bit short on supplies right now.”

After a minute, she pushed herself to her feet and started walking away, barely limping,
apparently less experienced in hiding the phantom pain than he was.

He watched her go, eyes following the curve of her retreating back. “Not killing me?”

She paused but didn’t turn. “I’ll kill you next time.”

“Killing me this time?”

The question became a habit.

When Granger had the upper hand — which was rare because Draco didn’t generally throw
himself into the middle of combat like a fucking moron — she always demurred because she
was busy; she had projects and other undisclosed tasks that needed to be done before she
killed Draco.

There was simply no time at present to murder her mirror-mate.

Not that she called him that. She still refused to acknowledge their situation.

She would kill him soon, she always promised, once she closed a stab wound or set a bone,
and then sometimes, when she wasn’t in danger of being missed, she sat there with him as he
recuperated, lingering for longer than she needed to. They never spoke.

Draco, for his part, hadn’t killed her yet because he’d constructed a very specific set of
criteria for the moment when Granger was allowed to die.

It had to be perfect.

Crucially, it required that she not be already injured by a third party, because where was the
satisfaction in that?

When she died, it would be by his hand only.

He told her as much when he crawled into an abandoned house to find her crumpled on the
floor, her stomach carved open, and a hag trying to eat her organs.

He blasted the damn thing into a wall, half-blind with pain and rage.

She was nearly dead, closer than she’d ever been before.

“You are not allowed to die, Granger!” he snarled as he tried to close the wound and not faint
himself every time he had to touch her internal organs, trying to repair them as best he could
before pushing them back into her body.

His nerves screamed in protest.

“I get to kill you. After everything you’ve put me through, you’re a fucking bitch if you die
for anyone else. I’ll tell everyone what an ungrateful cunt you are, after everything I’ve done,
everything you’ve put me through — I swear, I’ll walk right up to Potter and tell him about
what a god-awful nightmare you —”

She laughed at him then, right there in hell, scarlet blood bubbling from her lips, fingers
scrabbling as though blindly searching for him.

“I - wo - won’t.”

She didn’t.

They had an agreement.

He fantasised about kidnapping her sometimes, during the lulls when it had been weeks of
feeling but never seeing her.

Strategically, the idea made sense. He could hide her away somewhere where she couldn’t get
hurt anymore, and he could finally live in a semblance of peace.

The only thing that stopped him from attempting it was the thought of what she would do to
make his life an even worse hell if he held her captive. She would definitely do something
spiteful, like give herself nerve damage or bludgeoning her own brains out just to get back at
him.

However, even if he ignored the danger and implausibility of successfully keeping Hermione
Granger as a captive, there was an unrelenting and growing magnetism between them that
was becoming harder to ignore.

Draco couldn’t stay away from her.

It was as if the universe bent in on itself, folding paradoxically so that their paths crossed
over and over, interweaving them no matter how hard they tried to avoid each other.

Every time her injuries were nearly fatal, and she was alone, it was during a battle or attack
that Draco knew the precise location of, in a place he knew well enough to apparate to.

Every time Draco was hurt on those pointless errands around Europe, retrieving grimoires
and other archaic items, it was always Granger who happened to stumble across him, on
some odd mission or reconnaissance of her own.

They were incapable of staying apart.

If Draco captured her and managed to somehow keep her somewhere, he knew he wouldn’t
be able to stay away.

He’d always end up wherever she was.

And it wouldn’t be to kill her.

“Do you think it’s really as bad as the books say — when one of us dies?”

Granger finally asked the question.

They’d run into each other at the Shrieking Shack of all places.

Of course they did.

Draco had volunteered for the patrol, meant to keep Order members out of Hogwarts when
the school was empty over the holidays.

He’d done so in a bid to avoid strangling Dolohov, who’d grown increasingly obsessive and
vocal about what he was going to do to the Mudblood bitch who’d killed his hellhound and
sabotaged a myriad of his ‘unstoppable’ weapons.

Granger had also been assigned to watch the Shrieking Shack, apparently to keep the Death
Eaters from sneaking into Hogwarts over the holidays.

After an awkward standoff, they’d agreed that if they didn’t let anyone else in, then they were
both technically doing their jobs.

They sat on the dusty floor, facing each other, their boots almost touching.

It was one of the rare occasions when neither of them was injured, which Draco found
relentlessly distracting. It cut him loose, robbed him of any pre-established script to follow.

He swallowed, mouth going dry both at the question and acknowledgment on her part.

“What? That when our ‘mirror’ dies, the other person becomes a shadow of themselves, their
life drained of all sensation and colour and everything else that makes living mean
anything?” He tried to say it lightly.

She nodded, watching him with her stupidly big eyes.

He forced a scoff. “I doubt it. Some pacifist Seer probably made it up. It’s bullshit.”

She glanced away, giving a stiff nod.

“That would make sense,” she said.

He watched from the corner of his eye as she rummaged through a rucksack and pulled
something out wrapped in a cloth.

“Whichever of us makes it will have to set the record straight,” Draco said, trying and failing
to look away from her, his shirt collar growing tight.

“Maybe write a book,” he added as a joke.

She broke off a piece of something and nibbled nervously at it.

“What are you eating?” he asked, desperate to talk about something else.

“Sourdough bread.” She tilted her hand to show him. “Do you want some?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Absolutely not.”

He’d no sooner said it than his stomach growled.

Audibly.

She blinked and studied him. “Did you bring any food? I don’t think I’ve seen you eat since
you got here.”
Draco scowled, shifting uncomfortably on the floor. “I was going to buy something in town,
but you’re here, so I can’t very well leave. You’d probably sneak half the Order into
Hogwarts just to spite me.”

She laughed, sending a rush of heat through his chest.

She extended her hand. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“No, Granger, I don’t want any of your revolting peasant food.” He grimaced. “It’s not even
baked properly.”

At that, her smile vanished, and she drew her proffered loaf back, looking down at it. “Fair
enough. I admit, it’s not my best. Our safe house has an awful oven — burns everything on
one side no matter what I do.”

Draco’s heart lurched inexplicably, and he looked more closely at it. He’d assumed Weasley’s
mother had baked the thing.

“You—you made it?”

She looked up at him again. “Yes. I bake sometimes.” She returned her attention to her bread,
scratching at the burnt corner. “Not very well, though.”

She gave a deep sigh. “I don’t know why it never turns out. It’s like there’s some trick to it
that I’m missing. Even when I follow directions perfectly, something always goes wrong.”

He never thought he’d live to see the day when Granger admitted to doing anything
imperfectly.

“I’ve just — I’ve never imagined you baking.”

She looked up, raising an eyebrow. “Do you often imagine me, Malfoy?”

Draco’s face went hot. “What —” He croaked. “No! I don’t — I don’t ever imagine you —
well, I mean, killing you — I think about that a lot, but I don’t — I just — I meant — shut
up!”

The corner of her mouth rose slyly.

“Give that to me.” He snatched the bundle out of her hand, ripped off a piece, and shoved it
into his mouth, glaring at her as he chewed.

“Awful,” he said as soon as he’d swallowed, pushing the rest back into her hands and
standing. “Your baking is terrible. I’m going to patrol.”

He stomped away, feeling like an idiot even though he wasn’t even sure what exactly had
gone wrong.

Granger hid a smile when he came back, and kept doing it no matter how much he scowled at
her.
She didn’t even treat him like an active threat. She wandered in and out of the rooms he was
in while humming under her breath.

Draco sat glowering, watching her. Not because he liked looking at her, but to make sure she
didn’t make a move to stab him at any point.

He shifted around, trying to brood resentfully on all the dust collecting on his robes, and not
on the way Granger left handprints along the windowsills and definitely not on how
irrationally tempted he was to go over and trace his fingers over them in an attempt to see
how they might fit beneath his own.

Focus.

At one point, she curled up in the corner of the room he was in and went to sleep. Her
expression relaxed, her head resting against the wall, and her wand hung loose between her
scarred fingers.

He sat there, frozen, his own wand gripped in his hand.

He should kill her. Now.

Right now.

It was the perfect moment for it. There’d never be another opportunity like this.

He could make it quick.

She wouldn’t even feel it. Wouldn’t ever know. She could go gently.

That’d be better than anything else that could happen to them.

He steeled himself, but the moment he shifted, her eyes snapped open, and her fingers
tightened around her wand. Every aspect of her instantly alert.

He stood, desperate to get away from her. “I’m going to patrol.”

He was actually relieved that his left arm had started burning before he got back.

She appeared in the doorway, rubbing her own forearm.

He’d never considered she’d feel that too.

“Do you think they’ll send someone to replace you here?” she asked.

He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll improvise then.” She gave a careless shrug as she walked past him towards the next
room.

He reached out and grabbed her by the throat, shoving her against the wall and pinning her
there.
He could feel the bones of her jaw, the tendons in her throat, the burn scars mottling the right
side of her neck. Her face was inches from his, but she didn’t even look scared.

Not even startled.

She’d expected this moment. Been waiting for it the whole time.

He couldn’t breathe; his heart slammed wildly inside his chest.

He forced himself to squeeze, gripping her throat tighter until he could feel the flutter of her
pulse beneath his fingers, trying not to lean closer.

He wanted to drown her. Cut her out of his marrow, his lungs, his soul, everywhere she’d
somehow infiltrated and consumed him. This battle-scarred nightmare who’d become the
axis of his entire existence.

He knew how easy she’d be to break — after all, he’d pieced her back together so many
times.

“I am going to kill you someday,” he said through his teeth, trying to force conviction into the
words.

She didn’t claw at his hand or fight to free herself. Instead a sly smile curved across her lips
as she met his eyes, slowly transforming into a grin so sharp it could’ve cut his heart out.

“Not if I kill you first,” she whispered.

It was then that he felt the tip of her wand tip under his jaw, and the knife blade pressed
against his stomach. He looked down. Their faces were reflected in the blade, crowns
together like mirror images, her dark to his fair, his dark to her light.

A wave of treacherous relief flooded through him.

He wanted to drown in her, press closer until there was no space left between them. If he did,
would she let him?

If his arm wasn’t burning to the point of being nearly numb, he probably would have, but if
he didn't respond to the summons, they would send someone for him.

He exhaled and let go slowly, fingers lingering against her skin, slipping reluctantly away.

His mouth watered, but he made himself step back.

Her weapons vanished back into her combat uniform as she straightened.

“Next time,” he said.

Their promise had grown short.

She just smirked.

Next time came very quickly.

The Dark Lord wanted Hogwarts, and what better time to seize it than when it was empty for
the winter holidays? At least that was the reasoning Draco received when he got back.

It was to be a quick and brutal takeover, which meant that a Death Eater as useless as Draco
was allowed to stay home.

He didn’t argue.

He could tell within minutes of the first attack that Granger was still there and already had a
minor wrist sprain. She really had no sense.

He rolled his eyes and poured himself a strong drink.

He didn’t particularly care which way this battle went. There was no strategic use for
Hogwarts aside from the symbolic ‘fuck you’ to Potter, which seemed to be the Dark Lord’s
main motivation for everything lately.

“Think Dolohov’s newest weapon will work?” Goyle asked, having somehow wormed his
way into the inner circle over the years.

Draco snorted. Dolohov always had a new weapon, and it always somehow backfired on
him.

“Doubtful. Closest thing to success he’s ever managed was the hellhound, and that lasted
what, half an hour?”

No sooner had he spoken than pain unlike anything he’d ever known exploded through him.

His entire chest carved open, bones split apart, nerves mangled. Blistering agony radiated
outward and tore through his entire body.

He dropped to the ground in front of Goyle, unable to even draw breath to scream.

He dimly heard his parents calling his name, asking what was wrong.

He tried to force words out, but his body refused to work; a cascade of agony like a waterfall
crushed him into the floor and down into oblivion.

Pain vivid as a supernova blinded Draco the instant he regained consciousness.

He had never known this much pain. He could barely extend his consciousness beyond it.

He dimly registered that his mother was leaning over him, putting cool clothes on his head.

Granger — was all he could think about.

What’s happened to Granger?

It was not possible for anyone to be in this much pain and not be dead. He could hardly
believe he wasn’t dead.

But she was still there. He could feel her.

He ground his teeth together, clawing at his chest even though he knew there was no wound.
He struggled, trying to push himself to his feet.

She was at Hogwarts.

What had they done to her at Hogwarts?

Dolohov, fucking Dolohov. Why hadn’t anyone killed that psychopath?

“Draco, rest. A healer’s coming.” His mother tried to press him back into bed.

He shoved her away, finally lurching to his feet.

“Draco,” his father was there, gripping him hard by both shoulders, “what are you doing?”

Draco forced himself to breathe even though it felt like something was shoved into his chest
through his lungs and straight down through to his spine. The agony distorted his ability to
even feel his body.

“If you don’t move — I will kill you.” He actually meant that threat for the first time in his
life.

He tore his father’s hands off himself and apparated, his destination crystal clear.

At the outer gates of Hogwarts an immense swath of bodies lay strewn about as if they’d all
been struck by a massive centralised curse that had burst outward, their limbs twisted and
distorted like the branches of a tree.

Only a few feet away, Dolohov lay crumpled on the ground, Granger’s knife sticking out of
his eye socket.

In the centre of the spiral of bodies, Granger was trapped, impaled up through her back by a
lance, its blade so long that more than half still protruded out of her chest.

She was still alive.

She was the only person still alive.

The armies on both sides had been nearly annihilated. Only a small surviving group pushed
in towards the castle.

Draco ignored the fighting. They could all die for all he cared.
Granger was sobbing quietly, the lance gripped in her hands, trying desperately to pull herself
up off the blade, but it angled too sharply upwards and she couldn’t lift herself free.

The edge sliced her fingers open. Fresh pain seared through Draco’s hands and chest. He
nearly dropped to his knees, biting back a groan.

She gave a wretched sob and let go, slumping back further onto the blade; the hard metal
shifted through her body, grinding against bone, severing more nerves. Crimson painted her
torso, radiating out from the point of impalement. She looked like a flower, blood blooming
outward from her heart and the lance as the stigma.

“Granger…” He forced himself to keep moving towards her.

She looked up at his voice. Her face had gone grey.

“S-stop —” she rasped, holding out a mangled hand to ward him off.

He didn’t stop.

He just had to get to her.

He always saved her. That was how it worked.

If he could get to her, everything would be alright. Just like it always was in the end.

“Stop…!” She forced out, her voice louder.The effort sent blood cascading down her chin.
“It’s a — it’s a trap.”

He looked uncomprehendingly at her.

Her mouth twisted in anguish. “I’m — I’m the trap.”

He forced himself to pause, trying to focus, to take in details, even as pain blurred everything
and tore unrelentingly at the back of his consciousness, trying to drag him under.

The agony was inhuman.

There were bodies struck down, Death Eater and Order alike, killed mid-fight, but there were
other bodies, only Order bodies, crumbled around and behind Granger, reaching towards her.

They hadn’t died fighting — they’d died trying to reach her. To save her.

Dolohov had known someone had saved her, had taken her away after the hellhound. He’d
grown obsessed with killing her but had never managed it.

The weapon, this revenge, wasn’t just merely vengeance on her.

Dolohov had designed it for both of them.

She should be dead.

The blade pierced through the centre of her chest, splitting her open. A curse like that, an
injury like that — she should have died instantly.

Something was keeping her alive.

After all, Dolohov never killed anyone outright when he could make them suffer.

Granger braced herself and tried to drag her body up off the blade again, making it an
excruciating inch that sent Draco to his knees. His vision exploded into blinding shards of
glass.

Draco forced himself to breathe for a moment before he crawled towards her. The ground
was covered in a sludge of blood and mud that clung to his hands and clothes as he tried to
reach her. He just had to reach her...

“Granger… I told you, I get to kill you.”

He was only a few feet away from her now, and he pushed himself off the ground to read the
runes carved into the blade. Ironic, the way all his research, all those errands for Dolohov,
had made him so fluent in esoteric magic.

Now he understood. Now he could see the trap.

She was lethal to touch. Any contact and his life would be ripped out to extend hers. That
was how everyone nearby had died, why she was the only one left.

He could Avada her, and it would be pointless as long as she was run through on that lance.
She couldn’t die.

She was trapped. Her life strung on a thread that refused to break so long as she remained
skewered by the enchanted blade.

“Can’t save me this time,” she said, forcing a weak smile. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. “You promised.”

He was standing directly in front of her, trying to breathe properly just once more. To feel air
in his lungs. The mud underfoot squelched, threatening to drop him to the ground, but he
refused to fall. Not yet.

The blade kept him from getting any closer to her. The blood-stained tip was level with the
centre of his chest.

“That was the deal,” he said, “you promised.”

Now he didn’t care how pathetic he sounded. He stepped forward.

The lance was sharp, enchanted to cut through any spells or armour; it required no pressure to
drive into his own chest, straight through the bone. Merely walking into it closed the space
that kept her beyond his reach.
He barely felt it. All he felt was her, close enough now that he could wrap his arms around
her shoulders.

He thought he heard his mother screaming his name somewhere far away.

He tightened his arms around Granger. She was too weak to move, but she still tried to push
him back.

Too bad Dolohov hadn’t planned for this.

Or perhaps he had. It hardly mattered.

Holding her tight against his chest, Draco jerked back, ripping them both off the weapon. It
clattered to the ground.

He dropped to his knees, and the pain of the impact nearly made him black out. He fought to
stay conscious, clutching Granger in his arms, her blood flooding over his arms as his own
seeped down his chest.

“Always said — I’d kill you,” he rasped out, cradling her against his chest, his head resting
on hers. Her wild hair brushed against his cheek. “Second time you were — wrong.”

Snow started to fall, white spiralling flakes that vanished as they reached the sea of blood that
stained the ground.

Granger was so still he thought she’d died the instant he pulled her free, but then she dragged
in a small breath.

“M — Malfoy…” his name was barely more than a whisper.

The remaining tatters of his heart clenched. Her eyes were out of focus, the grey sky
reflecting like a mirror on their surface. Flecks of snow dotted her hair and lashes, melting
into silver droplets.

She swallowed several times before she spoke. “D-do you… think — it was bad luck —
you… you and me?”

Draco had never expected to hear that question, but he always assumed he knew the answer.
All this time, the only thing he’d been sure of was that their bond was a curse. How could it
be anything else?

”No,” he said. Immediately.

The moment she asked. He knew.

She was still for a moment, her lips trembling. “Really?”

He felt the blood from his lungs rising, coating his tongue. He swallowed, not wanting to
stain her with it.
He looked back on all of it. All the time he’d spent hating her, for the pain she represented,
for ruining his comfort. He’d never given any thought to any other possibilities beyond their
present moments. Always told himself it was a curse, the worst luck, the cruellest twist of
fate.

All to reach this point and finally realise…

“You were the best part,” he said.

She gave no reaction at first, lying still in his arms for so long he feared that perhaps she’d
died before he’d managed to tell her. Then she spoke again.

“Do you think… we could get another chance?”

His throat closed. When he tried to breathe, he choked on a fresh wave of blood. It burned the
inside of his lungs, making them seize. “I don’t know — if it works like that.”

The edges of his vision were fading, turning black.

“If it does… would you try again?”

“For you — I would.”

Her fingers found his, squeezing briefly. “Next time… then.”

As she said it, her eyes turned glassy and his face floated in the empty reflection of her gaze
as her body went limp. Her hand fell away.

She was gone.

The ‘inseverable’ connection between them vanished like smoke.

And so, Draco discovered that the Seers had lied. The books were all bullshit.

Colour and sensation didn’t cease.

Draco knelt there, still surrounded by the vivid red of her lifeblood, consumed with so much
pain his heart seemed to tear itself wider with every serrated beat.

There was no loss of senses or dulled sensation now that she was gone. Everything remained
as vivid as it had ever been. The only monochrome was the fresh snow, slowly blanketing
their surrounding world.

He knelt there, no longer a prisoner to Fate’s whims or the universe’s sense of balance. He
was free.

There was nothing on the other end of his scale. He was bound to no one.

He clutched her against his chest, fighting for breath as the snow fell cold on his skin, and the
stain of scarlet spread further, turning black in the mud. Still his wretched, selfish, tattered
heart kept beating on and on, time stretching out inexorably.

Every second, every beat, was its own eternity, filled with nothing but regret. All the things
he’d wasted, all he’d never said or done.

He’d spent so much time lying, allowing every opportunity to slip by. And now it was all
over.

He gave a wet laugh, blood overflowing his lungs, dripping from his lips as his heart finally
shuddered to a stop. The world faded away, robbing him of Granger’s still face.

The books had lied, and yet the warnings that held him back and haunted him had been true
in the end.

In those seconds without her, Draco’s life had lost all its colour. The pain he’d spent so much
time resenting turned empty. In the end, he barely felt it.

Without her, it wasn’t even a shadow of a life.

It wasn’t anything at all.

End Notes

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