Is it possible to know if you're sane?

Hermione had asked herself that question a thousand times that year. She had concluded, after mulling it over the first several hundred times, that it probably wasn't. As she asked it again, the answer was the same.

She sighed quietly and tucked a curl behind her ear.

Perhaps she was insane.

It would be convenient. And easier. Easier for almost everyone.

There were certainly enough people eager to believe it. So many people who considered it the convenient answer. Hermione Granger, poor dear, she lost her mind in the war.

It would have made things so much simpler for everyone. It would have spared Hermione all the tests. All the testimonies. All the skeptical, pitying glances. The pictures of herself splashed across the pages of The Daily Prophet. Spared Harry from having to take advantage of his hero status.

If everyone could just agree that Hermione Granger had lost her mind, everything would be a lot easier.

Some days Hermione wished that it could be that easy. The mad people she had encounter seemed far happier and freer than she was. She didn't feel mad at all.

She felt so sane it hurt.

She exhaled slowly.

Six months. She'd made it six months. Dragged herself through by sheer determination.

Sometimes those months had felt longer than the whole war.

It was an awful thing to think. The war had been terrible. All those years and deaths. Grinding on and on. But at least the war had been shared. There were people who understood. She'd been fighting for something vast and important.

Fighting for herself was much harder. The last six months had been her own unique and private agony.

While the whole world was moving on, she was frozen in time. Waiting.

Six months.

She felt like she'd been drowning the whole time.

A grating sound that tore her abruptly from her thoughts. She blinked and shook her head. Her curl sprang free of her ear and the drab waiting room she was seated in swam back into focus. The door across the room swung open and Draco Malfoy walked through. Her stomach flipped and dropped sharply.

When his eyes landed on her a look of despair came over his face.

She got to her feet and stared at him.

Six months. Six months in Azkaban.

All other Death Eaters has gotten life sentences but Harry Potter had demanded Draco Malfoy's be reduced. Six months was the lowest Harry could convince the Wizengamot to agree to.

Six months and Draco was already nothing but skin and bones. He looked almost like a corpse. Deathly pale. The life seemingly sucked out of him. His eyes were mostly blank. There was nothing but pain in them.

The guard shoved a clipboard into Hermione's hands and she shakily signed her name in triplicate.

"He's all yours," the burly man muttered before exiting the room, leaving her alone with Draco.

"Granger," he said after several minutes of silence.

"Draco," she replied. She didn't ask him how he was. She didn't comment on how long it had been. What do you say to someone who just spent six months having every shred of happiness sucked out of them while they shivered in a desolate cell?

"Why are you here?" he finally asked.

"I'm in charge of your release. All Azkaban parolees are required to have a legal guardian accept responsibility for them. Normally it's a next of kin, but you don't have any. I volunteered."

Draco suddenly looked both corpse-like and nauseated.

"You what?" he rasped. "There was no one else? Isn't Potter related to me? He's my fifth cousin twice removed. Or the Weasleys. We're eighth cousins."

Hermione ignored the stab of hurt and stared at him steadily.

"Harry would have, but he's a bit busy. I'm not really doing anything."

He blinked and grew more pale.

"Granger—" he said, his voice unsteady. She didn't know if it was from emotion or disuse. He didn't say anything else, as though all the words stuck in his throat.

Hermione pressed on, focusing herself. "You're not allowed to have your wand until you've completed a three month probationary period. I'll help you travel anywhere you want to go. Do you want me to take you to the manor and help you resettle there?"

"No—!" he said and his voice cracked faintly.

"Alright," she said. Without thinking she stepped towards him and extended her hand. He stepped sharply away from her, backing up until the wall stopped him.

Hermione withdrew her hand and looked at him, trying to breathe evenly. Stay focused. The healers had said, staying focused on what was happening was important.

She couldn't let herself stress and get caught on details. When she got caught on details she tended to obsess. When she'd obsess, her thoughts would start to spiral. When she'd spiral, she'd get drawn down. Down down down.

Down into nothing.

Until there was nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing—

"Granger."

She blinked.

Draco was no longer several feet away from her. He had suddenly reappeared only a few inches away. His hands were around her shoulders as he stared down at her. The curl that had kept slipping out and getting in her eyes was gone. She could feel it tucked carefully behind her ear.

She hadn't put it there.

She looked up into his face.

She recognized the emotions in his eyes.

Worried. Devastated

She dropped her eyes.

"Sorry," she said trying not to give in to the tears stabbing at the corners of her eyes. She'd hoped—she'd practiced. She'd taken all her potions.

She'd thought she could manage it.

"You still...?" he asked. His hands were still on her shoulders. They felt warm and familiar.

She wondered how much time had passed.

"Sometimes," she said, unable to meet his eyes.

"How often?"

"Not that much," she lied, "It's not normally much of an issue. If they last too long—or if there are crowds—I just end up back in St Mungo's for a few days."

"Days...?" Draco said, voice hollow.

The pained expression on his face made her lose track of her deception slightly. She shook her head.

"It's not a big deal. As I said, I'm not really doing anything. It—I think it happens less when I don't go out. Or at least, when it does, there's no one to see. No picture in the papers. No hospital visits. Just—a skip. And then, when I come out of it I make sure I eat something."

"You're living alone?"

She looked away from him and stared into a corner.

"It's easier—I find. I tried to live at the Burrow but the noise and unpredictability made it worse. And then Harry invited me to live with him, but—he and Ginny—it stressed me. Trying to keep out of the way. Worrying I was ruining a moment. So, I got a place of my own. And the healers made this bracelet," she pulled up her sleeve and showed the bangle around her wrist. "If I don't move for more than four hours it sends an alert to Harry."

"Granger..." he sounded on the verge of crying.

"Anyway," she hurried on without thinking. "If you don't want to go to the manor, do you want to come to my place?"

She blanched as she realised what she'd said. She had not meant to extend that invitation.

"Oh, no. No, no that's silly," she said, quickly trying to backtrack, "I can take you to Gringotts to get your finances in order. Then we can look into places in Diagon Alley. There are a lot of hotels and short term rentals options there. I have pamphlets."

His hands on her shoulders shook. She glanced up and realised he was staring at the wall behind her head. She wondered if he even realised his hands were still on her. They kept gripping her tighter and tighter as though he expected her to shatter if he let go.

He gasped after a few moments. As though he'd forgotten to breathe while he was deciding what to do.

"Your place, I suppose. Until we figure something else out," he finally said in a hard voice.

Her heart sank.

She steeled herself. It would only be for a day. She could manage for a day. If she just was more careful it would bd fine. It had probably just been nerves. She could be fine for a day.

She nodded and put her hand on his wrist, closing her eyes and apparating them both.

They reappeared by a stone cottage near a beach.

Hermione looked over at Draco.

"It's not a manor," she said awkwardly.

"It's nice," he said.

He had just gotten out of prison, she thought. Probably anywhere would be nice. Even a tent. Or a cave.

"You can wash," she said as she led him inside, "and I'll warm up some food. You're so thin."

He didn't say anything in reply as he went into the bathroom. She hurried into the kitchen and started warming the stew she'd made the day before.

She kept herself busy. Move from one task to the next. Maintain the flame beneath the cauldron. Slice the bread. Soften the butter. Straighten the table cloth.

Keep focused on what is happening.

She tried not to worry about losing herself again. If she worried, it would stress her. If she were stressed, she'd start getting stuck on details. If she were stuck on details, she'd...

She forced herself to stop thinking through the sequence. Check the cauldron. Was it enough bread? He was so thin. Maybe she should slice more. She hadn't set the table yet.

She didn't want to lose herself again. She didn't want him to think he stressed her. If he thought that he'd get worried. If he was worried he might get inquisitive...

She straighten the table cloth. She kept looping. The basket was overflowing with sliced bread by the time he emerged from the bathroom, showered and changed into the robes she'd brought him.

She stilled and stared at him.

"I made beef stew," she said.

She watched him eat two bowlfuls. She buttered bread and kept shoving across the table at him.

Finally he set his spoon down and stared at her.

"I don't understand," he finally said, "You were better. When I left it had been weeks since you had dissociated. What happened?"

She stared at him, frozen for several seconds, uncertain of what to say.

As the seconds ticked by, his eyes suddenly widened and his mask of reserve slipped. He expression became devastated and he started to lean towards her.

Right—he thought...

She had to say something.

"It started after you left," she blurted. Her eyes widened in horror when she realised what she'd admitted.

His expression crumbled and his eyes grew mirrorlike.

"They think maybe it was just shock," she said, looking away from him and running a fingernail along the checkered print on the table cloth. "They thought after a while I'd recalibrate."

"Potter didn't tell me," Draco said, his voice was shaking and his expression was furious. "I asked about you and he said you were fine."

"I told him to," Hermione said. "You would have worried. It would have made it harder and you couldn't have done anything. I told him to say I was fine."

She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, "And I am fine. It's not like I'm dying. I just—get a bit—lost sometimes. It doesn't matter."

Draco's expression grew disdainful. "You live in a cottage by yourself in—Where are we? Wales? And you aren't doing anything," he said in a flat voice. "That's not fine. Not for you."

Heat flared in her chest and all the way up to her jaw. "Why not? Is it mandated somewhere that I need to be doing something? I'm entitled to have time if I want it," she said, folding her arms and meeting his eyes.

"Really? That's what this is? Time?" He quirked an eyebrow. "This is what you dreamed about doing after the war? Wales. Not that Potions Mastery you talked about? Not visiting Ilvermony's transfiguration lab? Not that coven internship in the Black Forest? This is what you really wanted. A cottage in the middle of nowhere all by yourself."

Hermione glared at him and tried to keep from crying. She had forgotten how mean he was. How he poked at things that everyone else had to decency to dance around.

"What? Do you want me to say I'm broken? Would that make either of us feel better?"

"It would be honest," he said, voice seething. "Were you even going to tell me they'd started again? You weren't. I could tell by your face in the waiting room. You were horrified that I knew."

Hermione stared at him for several seconds, hesitating.

"You are in love with me," she said.

He froze and stared at her. His face slowly growing pale.

"You never said so, but I knew. All those months. I watched you. I was always watching you. I knew that you fell for me. It happened slowly. But by the end, you had fallen as hard as I had. That was part of why I was so desperate to protect you from the Order. I knew you weren't going to leave me or try to use me to protect yourself, rven though you could have."

"So this is what? Pity?" His expression grew closed. "I don't want your help. I didn't want Potter's help. I was perfectly willing to die in Azkaban. But instead you lot dragged me out. Apparently in order to expand on whatever fucked up thing it is that exists between us. While you lied—and tried to pretend you were alright."

He stood up so abruptly his chair fell backwards as he stared down at her. There were a thousand emotions in his eyes. He dragged his fingers through his hair.

"Granger," he said in a broken voice. "What is the point of all this supposed to be?"

She had no answer.

He stood there for a second longer before turning on his heel and storming outside.

Hermione watched him go. Her heart was pounding. She looked down at the bread she had been buttering.

A walk would be good for him. The beach was ideal. The crash of the waves. The wind. The harsh beauty. It was a ragged, imperfect place. It wasn't tranquil or quiet. It looked like she felt inside.

Probably how he felt too.

She stood up, took the dishes to the sink, and started washing them by hand. As she stood there, she turned his question over and over in her mind.

What was the point of all this supposed to be?

She didn't know.

She just didn't know how to move on. What had happened between them felt incomplete. Painful. Like a wound that wouldn't close. Every time she tried to move on. Tried to go out. Tried to be alright...

It felt like something were dragging its claws inside of her. Making a hole that kept getting larger and more agonising every time she tried to do so much as breathe.

She couldn't move on. Not when he was being unfairly punished for something he had been as forced into as she had. He didn't deserve to rot in Azkaban. He deserved a second chance. To have a life. To live free from the endless, destructive grind of war. He deserved to move on after what he'd done for her.

She sighed and set a plate on the dish rack, exhaling unsteadily as she gripped the cloth in her hand.

Why hadn't she been able to stop herself from spiraling in the waiting room?

Her hands shook as she thought about it. She couldn't even hold on for five minutes in front of him.

It had ruined everything. She had just wanted to pretend that everything was fine. Help him settle in. See that he was alright.

If she did that, she thought, she'd be able to move on.

She just wanted him to be alright.

If he were alright, maybe she'd be able to be alright too. Maybe, if she wasn't always worrying about him, her mind would stop running away.

Now everything was spoiled. He was worried. He was angry at her. He probably thought he was responsible for her again. That she had brought him to her cottage to force him to be her keeper. To use his feelings as leverage.

This wasn't what she wanted. She'd just wanted to see him again. To know he wasn't suffering.

She kept scrubbing his bowl. Over and over.

She should take him somewhere else while he was still angry. She had pamphlets about rooms available in Diagon Alley. She would go get them out. He could go almost anywhere by himself from Diagon Alley. He wouldn't need her help after that.

It would be for the best.

She didn't want him to feel caged by her.

It had been foolish to think that seeing him again would somehow fix her.

This was just the way things were now. This was how she was.

She turned the bowl and thought sadly about Ilvermony. About a Potions Mastery. About the Black Forest coven internship. All those dreams. An entire lifetime of them.

Impossible things for someone who habitually vanished into their own mind.

She'd nearly burned down Harry's flat trying to brew potions. His wards had gone off and he'd rushed home and found her standing blankly in the kitchen beside a cauldron of pepperup potion that had caught fire and been on the verge of exploding across the room.

It had taken five hours for her snap out of the daze. She stopped brewing after that.

It was fine.

She was fine. She was alive.

She was happy in Wales. She had books. She liked walking along the seashore. The faucets and shower and stove were all charmed to turn themselves off after fifteen minutes. Harry and Ron came to visit all the time. It was a lot better than ending up committed in the Janus Thickey Ward. If she dissociated in her cottage there was no one to know. No one to worry.

She should take Draco to Diagon Alley before her mind ran away again.

Even if she couldn't see him... just knowing he wasn't in prison would be a relief. The papers would probably write about him sometimes. Harry would keep an eye out and tell her.

If Draco was alright, she would worry less. If she worried less, maybe her stress levels would drop. If she wasn't stressed she might get less caught on details. She'd stop spiraling. Then maybe she'd actually be able to be alright. She wouldn't get lost. She'd be fine.

It would be fine.

It would.

She was fine—

She blinked.

Draco was kissing her.

The moment before she'd been in the kitchen washing the dishes. Now they were both seated on the couch. His palm was pressed against the side of her neck, his long fingers gently tangled in her hair. His lips were cool, sweet, and familiar against hers.

Her hands darted up and gripped his robes as she kissed him back fiercely. Crushing her lips against his. Trying not to cry. Sliding one hand up into his hair as she pressed herself closer to him. His arm slipped around her waist.

Then she remembered herself.

She let go and jumped back quickly.

"Sorry," she blurted out and looked away burning with shame. Her hands were dry but the fingertips shriveled, as though they'd been sitting in water for a long time. She glanced around the room and realized the sky was red with the first rays of sunset.

It had been hours.

A broken whimper escaped her throat.

"Sorry," she said again, pressing her lips together and trying not to cry in frustration.

Draco didn't say anything. He just watched her with a sad, pensive expression.

"I was thinking," she said, her voice shrill and shaking. "A room in Diagon Alley would probably be ideal. I don't know why we came here. This can't be comfortable for you. Diagon is much better. You'll be able to travel easily there, so you won't have to worry—After this I won't—I should have just let Harry—I didn't mean—"

Her voice failed her and she sobbed under her breath. She jumped to her feet.

"Harry picked up some information for you," she said, hurrying over to her desk and gathering up a bundle of papers about the various hotels and short-term flat rentals in Diagon Alley. "Here. You can look over them and let me know where you want me to take you. Gringotts is closed, but I can cover you for a few nights. If you want to pay me back you can owl me or do a transfer through Gringotts. Just remind me to give you my account information."

She put everything on the coffee table and then spun and darted into the next room. Snatching a heavy wool jumper off the hook, she rushed through the door and down to the beach.

As she reached the tideline she stopped and stared down at the the ocean debris. Broken shells and driftwood and bits of mangled seaweed. She looked out at the incoming tide and brought her hands over her mouth as she started to cry.

Draco's lips against hers had brought everything rushing back and crashing down on her like a tidal wave. Confronting her with all the lies she kept telling herself.

That she simply needed to see him once so she could know he'd be alright. That she wouldn't worry if she just saw him one last time.

But her stress wasn't just worry. She missed him, bitterly. She hadn't realised how keenly she craved him until she felt him touch her again. And she found herself kissing him with all the fierce affection she was endlessly burning with.

She'd thought she could ignore it.

Until she felt his hand caressing her as he pressed his lips against hers. Until she'd felt herself in his arms, and him in hers. In that moment, for one perfect second, everything had felt good again.

She'd forgotten what feeling good was like.

But it only lasted for an instant before the horror of reality crashed down upon her.

He was kissing her because she'd dissociated again. In order to bring her back. Her stomach had dropped sharply as she wrench herself away. As his hands fell away she was struck by the realisation that the hole she felt being clawed inside of her was the pain of his absence.

It was as though somewhere along the way their souls had fused. And when he'd left it was like he'd been torn out of her.

She'd been bleeding to death ever since.

She brushed the tears away and started walking down the beach.

What was it that existed between them? The fucked up thing that had tied them together so irrevocably.

It wasn't the love potion any longer. She was certain of that. She'd felt when the antidote suddenly counteracted it. That drugged devotion was gone. The endless, irresistible compulsion to do anything, anything in the world to protect Draco. The desperate obsession that had forced her to betray and murder her friends while her mind screamed and tore itself apart with guilt. It was gone. The antidote had swept through and excised it.

But when reason returned to her in a flood, Draco Malfoy hadn't reverted in her eyes.

The love potion hadn't made her generally delusional. It didn't attribute imaginary qualities to him in order for her to love him. It had simply made her love him. Exactly as he was. Willing to do anything for him. Anything to protect him.

When he was spiteful and resentful. When he gradually grew guilt-ridden and concerned. And as he slowly became kind. Then sad and affectionate. And finally adoring and devastated.

She saw him change. Watched him shift from ignoring her to watching over her as carefully as she watched over him.

When the love potion vanished and she began to grasp what had happened, she discovered she had actually fallen for him. Not with irrational devotion but with the same adoring devastation that he had for her.

It wasn't a revelation that had gone over well with anyone.

Stockholm Syndrome. After-effects from the love potion. Just another symptom of her fractured mental state. Not real.

Certainly not real.

They kept re-dosing her with the antidote. Nothing changed her mind.

After all those months trying to created an antidote. Everyone had expected her to be enraged when she was finally cured. The Aurors swept in and arrested Draco within minutes of her swallowing it out of concern that she would try to murder him the moment the scales fell from her eyes.

Instead she still loved him.

It was like some sick joke by Fate. Ron had cried when he realised it. Harry had been the only person who wasn't surprised.

Almost anyone else in the world would have been more acceptable. Anyone but Draco Malfoy.

She wasn't supposed to fall for someone she'd been drugged into loving. She wasn't supposed to fall for her keeper. For someone she'd murdered her friends to protect. It was not supposed to happen.

But that didn't matter to Hermione. It didn't matter if it was sick sounding. It didn't matter if it was doomed. She wanted Draco.

She wanted him to look at her without looking guilt-stricken. She wanted him to kiss her solely because he wanted to. Not because he needed to bring her mind back. Not because he was sorry.

But it didn't matter.

None of it mattered.

If he stayed with her it would be because he felt guilty and responsible for her. Even though he loved her, that wouldn't be why he was there.

He deserved to move on.

She was stuck but he wasn't. He wasn't broken. He could have a life. A good life. He could get over her and eventually fall in love with someone who could make him happy. Someone who could give something back to him.

Hermione wasn't his responsibility. Her condition wasn't his fault. He'd done everything he could to help her hold on and keep her mind intact. To give her any scrap of happiness he could offer her. Even after the war when he didn't need to. He'd given up his chance to run and stayed to take care of her. He'd lived with her in the hospital nearly a year helping her recover. He'd given her the antidote, fully expecting her to hate and try to kill him after she'd swallowed it.

It wasn't his fault she was still broken. If he became trapped by her it wouldn't fix things. It would just create an additional victim in the sad life of Hermione Granger.

She had so many victims.

Draco could move on.

She had to let him go. She had to convince him she'd be alright so he could go.

But she didn't know how. She didn't know how to pretend to be alright. She wasn't even sure what being alright was anymore.

She kept trying, but every time—

Hermione halted suddenly on her trek along the beach and sobbed.

She didn't know how long she stood there weeping. When her tears finally subsided, she smeared them away and discovered the sun had slipped beyond the horizon. She stood for a few moments longer catching her breath. Then she started to head back to the cottage. Turning she found Draco standing behind her, about ten feet back.

She stared at him, heart pounding, for several seconds. How long had he been there?

"Why are you here?" she finally asked.

"I was worried about you," he said as he come closer.

"You don't need to," she said in a stiff voice. "I can take care of myself. I don't ever go past the tideline, just in case I—" her voice faltered. She always struggled to say 'dissociate.' "In case I get lost for a bit."

She brushed away the residual tears on her face and squared her shoulders.

"Did you find a place you wanted me to take you?" she asked.

She stared up at him hoping she didn't look as desperate as she felt. This was probably the last time she would ever see him.

It had been such a mistake to try to see him again. To think it would make things better. She'd made things harder for both of them. Shattered the illusion.

If she had just stayed away he certainly would have been able to move on. He would have thought she was alright. That she wasn't his responsibility anymore.

Now she'd ruined that for him.

"Granger, I'm not going to leave you here," he said.

A lump formed in her throat. The number of tears she could cry over him were apparently limitless. She blinked hard, willing them away.

"You're not responsible for me. And I'm not alone. Harry and Ron visit all the time. I don't need you," she said, staring across the darkening sea.

"Why did you volunteer as my guardian?" he asked, studying her carefully.

She shrugged feeling hopeless.

"I thought—I thought if I saw that you were alright that it would help," she said. "We never got to talk. I asked you to stay—but then aurors came and arrested you. I thought—if I helped you—it would give me closure."

"So this was goodbye."

"Yes. It was," she said looking down at her hands.

"I'm not going to leave you here," he said again.

"You should. You should go. I don't want you to stay here because you feel responsible for me," she said, her face twisting in misery.

He studied her for several minutes in silence.

"Granger, after you took the antidote, why did you ask me to stay?"

Her stomach flipped and she grasped for an answer with enough of the truth that he'd believe it.

"I—I watched you change. While we were together. You changed. The love potion, it didn't do anything to affect my perception of things. It just made me love you. l couldn't stop myself. You were so angry at the beginning. I knew you hated me. I knew you wanted Voldemort to kill me. I knew you were spiteful. The love potion didn't prevent me from knowing that. I just loved you anyway," she said, watching as the tide slowly approached.

"But then," she swallowed, "you stopped hating me. You started feeling guilty. And I saw that. You were kind to me. You stopped blaming me. You became sadder and sadder when my mind started slipping away. Not because you were worried about yourself, but because you were worried about me. You started caring about me. I thought for a long time I was just imagining it—seeing something that wasn't there because of how much I wanted it. But eventually I realised you really did."

The water was getting closer. An anxious wave hurried far ahead of the rest and lapped at the rocks only a few feet away. Then it slid back down the beach to the ocean.

"You could have drugged me," she said. "There are dozens of dark potions you could have dosed me with to protect yourself. I know you knew about them. You could have addicted me to a few of them and then kept re-dosing me to keep me alive. Using them to siphon out my life force and use it to keep my mind in stasis. If you hadn't cared about slowly poisoning me to death, they would have worked for however the long the war lasted. If you'd ever told me to take them, you know, I would have done it for you. I would have even made them myself if you'd asked."

She glanced over him. She meant to look away but found she couldn't drag her eyes away from his face once she let them rest there. She'd studied it a thousand times but she always wanted to look again.

He was all she saw when she closed her eyes. Even in her nightmares. He was always beside her.

Prison had made him gaunt. His skin was papery thin and tightly drawn across his bones. In the light of dusk his pale features and hair seemed almost luminous. His eyes were as sad as her own. As though somewhere along the way he and she had become mirrors of each other.

"There were countless ways you could have protected yourself if you hadn't cared about me," she said. "When you gave me the antidote—and I finally understood what had happened—it didn't stop me from realising everything you'd done for me. And at least in my case—I thought it was real. But you—you knew. You started to care for me, even though you knew I was only like that because of a potion."

"So, it was pity," he said, staring out at the sea.

Hermione felt her heart-breaking.

She closed her eyes.

She had to let him go. He could move on. He deserved to move on. She opened her eyes and looked at him steadily.

"Yes I felt sorry for you. I didn't think you deserved to think I hated you."

"And that's all?" he said, glancing over to look at her carefully. The silver of his eyes flickered and gleamed like moonlight.

"That's all," she said firmly. "I just wanted to know you were alright so we could both move on."

"How are you planning to move on?" he asked.

"I—," her voice died in her throat.

His expression became challenging, his eyes narrowed as he came closer to her. She skittered back and fought against the urge to cry. Again. Trying to drag her eyes away from his face.

"You aren't going to," he said in an accusing tone. "You're just planning on staying here. Hiding. Out of the way. Where"—he sneered—"there's no one to see. While the rest of the world moves on from the war and pretends that everything ended up happily."

"People deserve to move on," she said, angry at the spiteful and derisive way he said it. "I would love to move on. Shoving it in everyone's faces the fact that I can't doesn't fix anything. It just drags more people down with me."

She was breathing raggedly.

"And that's what you think I should do? Just move on?" he said, his eyes were flashing.

"You deserve to move on," she said, her voice shaking. "You've earned that. You were almost as much a victim as I was. I don't want you to be responsible for me again."

"Well, I don't want to be protected by you again, Granger!"

She stared at him hopelessly.

"Draco—" she said, her voice breaking and trailing off in a whimper. "Let me do this..."

He drew nearer so that she had to look up to see his face. The wind caught his hair and dragged it over his eyes and Hermione had to fight against the urge to lift her hand up and brush it away. Had to struggle against the desire to press her body against his, bury her face in his chest and hope he'd hold her the way he used to.

"If it's just pity, if it's just closure, why did you kiss me back? The love potion is gone. You had no reason to."

Hermione's mouth fell open as she stared up at him trying to think of an explanation.

He came closer. "Why are you so anxious to make me leave? Why run away to the beach and cry for half an hour? Why do you—"

He broke off and hesitated as though he was afraid of what he was about to say next.

"Why—" he started, his voice shaking as though he were crying. "Why are you still looking at me the way you did before you took the antidote?"

"Draco—" Hermione struggled to breathe and tried to think of a lie. She couldn't. "Please go. Having you here is hurting me."

"Why?"

"Because—," her voice sounded like she was a wounded animal. "I want you to stay and I hate myself for it."

"Why are you so afraid of having me stay? Tell me the truth."

"Because, I love you."

He grew deathly pale and his expression became horrified as he stopped short and stepped sharply back from her.

"And that—" she said, eyeing the sudden space between them, her chest stuttering. "That is why I didn't want to tell you."

"How—"

"I told you. I saw you change. By the end, I actually loved you. That's why I asked you to stay with me."

"It's probably an after-effect," he said, looking away from her. "Or maybe the dosage of the antidote was insufficient."

"That's what the Order thought. They had me re-dosed until the healers became concerned about permanent internal damage."

He opened his mouth as though he were going to offer another idea, she cut him off.

"Then they thought maybe Stockholm Syndrome. But the diagnoses didn't really align. I was already in love with you. So then they concluded it was either real or the delusion was just too deeply rooted for me to let go of it. Especially when my dissociation came back after you left." She inhaled, chest stuttering. "That's when most people concluded that I had just lost my mind. There was even a push to have me permanently committed into the Janus Thickey Ward, because it would be the kindest thing for me."

Her eyes were burning. "But Harry and the Weasleys' wouldn't hear of it. They helped me pass the psychological exams. It was determined I wasn't a danger to anyone. As long as I don't take off my monitor charm, I can't be forcibly committed. It's not as though there's a law about who you're allowed to be in love with. Or against having dissociative fugues."

Draco looked like he was about to either be sick or have an emotional breakdown. A lot of people had looked at her in a similar way.

It was probably for the best that he saw her that way too.

"Tell me where you want to go in Diagon Alley, and I'll take you there," she said in a dead voice.

She was on the verge of spiraling again. She wanted to now. Down. Down. Down. Where she wouldn't think anymore. Wouldn't feel.

She just needed to get him put somewhere else. He couldn't come back , not once he was gone. Not for three months at least. Then she could finally just—

Go.

"Granger, I'm not going to leave you here," he said, his expression had become pensive again.

It caused something inside Hermione to snap.

"Well, I don't want you here!" she shouted at him. "I don't want you to be here because you feel guilty and responsible for me. I don't want to be atonement for you. I don't want to be kissed by you because I've dissociated. I don't want you to pretend to believe me while you privately think I'm just broken and mad and hate yourself for it. I don't want it to be like that. I'd rather just be alone!"