Harry Potter: The Price of Silence.

20th January

Hermione and Malfoy pushed their way through the sea of students as they followed her double walk through the busy castle with Harry. It was hard to keep up with them in this memory, and even harder to hear their conversation through the roaring chatter going on around them.

Even though Hermione knew, in the rational part of her brain, that the sea of students weren't actually there and therefore she didn't need to be mindful of their shoulders, she still was. She still bent and ebbed her way through the crowd to avoid knocking into their small bodies. It was a force of habit, the war had engrained it into her, made her automatically want to be mindful and protective over small and helpless things - even if they weren't really there.

Malfoy, however, didn't suffer from the same affliction. He marched through the hoards of smaller witches and wizards and regarded them as exactly what they were; nothing. Projections of Hermione's mind. He didn't bend and veer his shoulders to allow them to pass, instead, he barged straight through them, and their bodies evaporated into thick clouds of smoke as he walked through them like ghosts.

By the time she rounded the next sharp corner, Hermione had caught up with her younger version, and was walking side by side with Malfoy. She still struggled to keep up with his pace. One of his long, smooth strides matched two of her shorter ones. She had a feeling he was doing it on purpose, just to make her breathless and piss her off. Again.

"Tell me what Arthur said?"

"If Dumbledore is travelling, then it's news to the ministry," Harry replied, his eyes on the floor and far away. The younger version of Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off when Harry sharply met her eyes again, as if inspiration had suddenly struck. "But, what about this? That night at Borgin and Burke's? Draco was looking at a vanishing cabinet."

Hermione felt Malfoy's cold eyes slide to her face at the mention of his name. She kept looking forward, and forced herself not to shiver under his gaze.

He'd been doing that a lot recently, almost daily since she'd started choking up blood after their sessions. His eyes tended to drift over and watch her while her memories unfolded before them, studying her a lot more intently than the memory he was supposed to be observing.

The elves seemed to be growing concerned about the amount of blood she vomited after their sessions, and had started supplying her with Pepper Up and Blood Replenishing potions afterwards. Malfoy didn't seem to care though. He was still just as relentless as ever, and refused to drop the length or number of sessions despite the elves advice - but he had started to watch her and somehow, Hermione found that worse.

She'd rather him ignore her or spew degrading insults about her 'fragile Mudblood health', or make a joke about the 'lesser species' not being able to handle this kind of harsh magic and then pretend she didn't exist afterwards- like he had been doing since her arrival. Now he seemed to be going out of his way to be as close to her as possible while they walked through her memories, shoulders practically touching, close enough she felt a cold chill from his proximity.

His constant observations were starting to unnerve her. She felt like an ant under a magnifying glass, twitching away from every movement, anxiously awaiting the moment he turned the glass towards the sun and burned her with it. It was bound to happen eventually, and the waiting was making her skittish.

There was something in his eyes while he watched her, in the way they raked over every minuscule twitch of her hand and lift of her brow that made her tense up. She'd been a bundle of nerves for days because of it. She couldn't sleep, her nails were bitten to the quick, and her hair was even wilder than usual from the constant tossing and turning in her bed. He didn't try and hide the fact that he was looking at her. He seemed completely unfazed when she caught him staring and threw him the most malicious scowl she could conjure.

But as much as his observations and frustratingly close proximity were getting to her, all that paled in comparison to the way he held her eyes when she stared back at him. She often felt trapped under his gaze. The way he looked at her ... It fascinated her. He stared at her eyes as though they held the answer to some question he hadn't spoken aloud, like he was looking for something, and she had no clue what it was.

The younger version of Hermione made a face. "What would Draco want with a vanishing Cabinet?"

Out the corner of her eye, she saw Malfoy quirk a brow. She kept moving, still refusing to look at him.

"You tell me?" Harry asked.

"He looks different, don't you think?" her younger self asked Harry. "Draco? Almost ill."

Hermione's eyes slid to look at Malfoy. Her stomach dropped when she saw how he was watching her younger double.

His expression was blank but there was a glint in his eyes, a tiny, barely noticeable ember.

Hermione realised, with a sickening twist in her chest, that she would have missed it herself if she weren't watching him so closely.

Harry snorted. "Who could tell the difference?"

"Awwww Granger," Malfoy said, that spiteful smirk finally reappearing as the memory faded around them. "I didn't know you cared so much about me."

"That was different."

"How so?"

"That was when I thought you had a soul that might be worth saving."

As soon as they landed back in her room, Hermione's spine violently curled in on itself and she dropped onto her hands and knees. Her shoulder's lurched sharply as that grotesquely familiar taste of blood burned its way up her throat.

Malfoy stepped back as the first wave of crimson splashed against the carpet, and she wished more than anything that he'd just fuck off and leave her to vomit a pint of blood in peace.

Her lungs burned with the need for oxygen, scarlet tears streamed from her eyes as wave after wave of blood forced its way up her throat. She felt a warm trickle creep out of her ears, sliding down her jaw to join the rest of the mess.

Minutes ticked by, but Malfoy stayed, watching as she wheezed and choked pathetically on the floor.

"Why..." Hermione gagged again as another thick clump choked her on its way out of her mouth. ".... Are you still ... here?"

Malfoy didn't say a word, but she heard the floor creak as he shifted his weight, presumably to kneel in front of her like he'd started to do after their sessions. One of his cold hands cupped her chin, again, like he'd started to do when her coughing fits began to subside, and she was too weak to fight him as he gently tilted her head back so he could look at her.

Hermione tensed up when she met his eyes. He carefully moved her face to the side to check the blood coming out of her ears, and when he tilted her head again and stared into her eyes, her skin pebbled. She wasn't sure why, probably the blood loss.

What was he looking for? Whatever it was, he clearly wasn't having much luck finding it. He was spending longer and longer examining her after each session, spending a few extra seconds each time -

A strange thump formed in her chest when his cold eyes flickered towards her mouth, and her breath hitched when he ran this thumb lightly across her bottom lip. It was such a simple movement, a gentle pressure that was obviously meant to wipe some of the blood still collected on her mouth, but it froze her in place.

What the fuck was wrong with her? Why wasn't she cringing away from him?

She watched his eyes flicker over her lips again, and she swore she could see something burning again. Something small; a tiny flicker in his grey irises. Something alive.

But why wasn't she trying to hit him? She should be swatting his hand away with enough force to break it.

Malfoy took a deep breath through his nose, his fingers curling tighter against her jaw.

She should be screaming at him for touching her this way.

He drew another gentle swipe across her bottom lip, almost like he couldn't stop himself, and Hermione suppressed a shudder.

The second brush of her lips seemed to thaw the ice in her veins, and she found the strength to lean out of his touch. She shuffled backwards until her shoulders rested against the foot of her bed.

"I told you not to touch me," she sneered weakly, wrapping her trembling fingers around one of the posters and using it to drag herself to her feet. "Do that again, and I will snap your thumb right off."