When the hallway was empty, Hermione let herself look over at Draco. She was so awash in emotion she could barely breathe. Hot with rage and cold with horror.

She couldn't believe how oblivious she'd been. How many things she'd taken for granted or simply failed to question. The empty classrooms he always seemed to be studying in. How he knew of more hiding spots in the castle than she had thought could possibly exist. How tense and slightly terrified he'd looked when she asked to speak with him and locked the door of the classroom.

She'd assumed it had been because of the pheromones, but maybe—

She didn't even want to think about it.

He'd been being bullied the whole semester and she hadn't noticed. Instead she'd been resentful that he didn't spend all his time staring at her, just assuming that he couldn't possibly have anything more urgent than herself to preoccupy him.

She stuffed all the wands into her pocket and reached toward him.

"Draco—I'm so sorry. I had no idea. And they hurt you—," her voice broke off as she touched his cheek. "I'm so sorry. I can't believe—"

She caught hold of his robes. "I should have realized."

His arms wrapped around her shoulders and he pulled her against himself.

"It's fine, Granger." She felt him rest his head on top of hers.

"It's not," she said in a thick voice, pulling away. "Let me see. What happened to you? I have murtlap essence—no, it's in the library. Draco, I'm so—sorry. What can I do? What can I do to fix this? What do you want me to do?"

Her throat felt constricted, and she kept tracing her fingers along his face where it was bruised. Now that she was closer, she realized his face was scraped too. As she studied it, she realized the bruising wasn't from being punched. He'd been thrown against a wall or maybe onto the floor and then had his face ground into the rough-hewn stones of the castle.

"Is your head alright? We should get you a potion. And your shoulder is hurt too. What do I do?"

"It's just a scratch, Granger," Draco said, pulling his face away from her touch. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm not just talking about your face. What would they have done once they realized they couldn't provoke you?" Her voice was shaking faintly. 

He avoided her eyes.

Hermione's jaw tightened. She clenched her hand into a hard fist. "H-how many times has this happened?"

He wouldn't answer that question either.

Hermione exhaled a sharp breath through her nose. "I should have realized—I should have thought—I'm so sorry I didn't. I'll go get my murtlap essence for you and then—I'll—I'll—I'm going to fix all of this."

She turned to go, making a rapid mental list of everything she needed to do. Her cheekbones were aching, and it felt as though there were a bottomless pit set somewhere inside her stomach.

She wasn't going to cry. She was so bloody tired of crying over every damn thing.

"Granger, don't." Draco caught her around the waist and pulled her back.

"No! Let me go. I need to fix this," she said, trying to pull his hands off of her.

She kept trying to break free until he slid a hand up her chest and pressed against the base of her throat, grazing her scent glands with his fingers. Hermione stilled and collapsed slightly against him, bursting into tears.

"I'm so so sorry. You should have told me. Where were the prefects? Why isn't anyone looking out for you?"

"It's alright," he said. But he sounded tired.

"It's not. Don't pretend to be alright so I'll feel better!" she said sharply. She straightened and rubbed the tears away angrily. She turned and stared up at him.

Draco avoided her eyes. "It's fine, Granger. I'm—" he scoffed faintly, "—I'm used to it at this point. I'm not going to let them get me expelled. You don't need to worry about me."

"That's not good enough," Hermione said, folding her arms mutinously. "This shouldn't be happening. I can't believe they'd take advantage of your probation."

Draco looked up at her sharply and gave a faint laugh that he cut off abruptly.

Hermione met his eyes and he looked away again. "What?"

"It's nothing," he said, shaking his head.

There was a pause, and he pressed the heel of his hand gingerly against his jaw, "I'm fine. You should go, you have Transfiguration in a few minutes. I'll find you later."

He gave her a faint, suggestive smirk, but his shoulders seemed tense. Pansy was right, he was a good actor.

Hermione didn't move. "No. Tell me. Why did you laugh when I said that?"

His expression grew closed, and the bitterness that would occasional flicker across his eyes appeared. "It was nothing. I just thought it was funny that you'd say that."

"What's funny?" Hermione felt bewildered.

He shrugged. "Well, aren't the term of my probation the reason you trust me for our 'arrangement'?" He glanced away. "Because a word from you is all it takes for McGonagall to expel me?"

Hermione felt cold. "What—What are you talking about? Expel you?"

"You know, after your heat when McGonagall called me to her office, to inform me on your behalf that my—my being there with you had been against your wishes, and if I ever bothered you again my expulsion would be immediate. It's fair. I'm not complaining. I just—thought it was funny, given our situation."

There was a stunned silence.

"She—said WHAT?" Hermione shrieked the question.

Draco looked at her with surprise.

Hermione started shaking and she backed away from him.

"I asked her to speak to you because I was worried that I had sexually assaulted you. I never said I hadn't wanted you there." She felt as though she couldn't breathe. She wanted to double over. It was as though someone had sucker punched her in the gut. "I can't—my memory from then isn't—I can only remember bits of it. You—you tried to leave. You were trying to leave, and I climbed on top of you and made you go into a rut. I thought that was why you—why you left before I woke up. So I asked McGonagall to speak to you—because I wasn't sure if you'd want to speak to me. That's—that's why I came and apologized."

Draco stared at her, his eyes wide with disbelief. "What—? Wait—When—?"

"When I found you in the classroom in the Magnus Turis after my heat," Hermione's hands were trembling. "When we talked about the Arithmancy project. I apologized first. I said—I can't remember exactly what I said, but I apologized."

Draco shook his head faintly, his expression suddenly tense. "No, you said you couldn't put into words how much you regretted it. That you hadn't been in your right mind and if you hadn't been in heat you would never have ever had sex with me. And that even though you knew I'd spoken to McGonagall already, you wanted to be sure that I knew." He recited the words as though they were something he had repeated to himself often.

"B-because I forced you," Hermione stammered with a growing sense of horror. "Because you wanted to leave and I didn't let you. That's—that's what I regretted. The fact that I climbed you and wouldn't let you leave when you wanted to."

"I didn't want to leave," Draco was speaking slowly and shaking his head. "I thought—I assumed you would want someone else. That's why I offered to go find a different Alpha for you. That's why I asked if you were sure."

Hermione drew a sharp breath, her eyes wide as she stared at him. "I don't remember that. I can barely remember anything." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to force the fog in her mind away. "I just remember—we were about to have sex and then you suddenly pulled away and when I tried to touch you, you moved further away until—" she flushed red, "—until I climbed on top of you and started giving you a handjob. But—why did you leave then?"

She stared at him through her hands. Her heart was beating so hard it felt like someone's fist driving into her ribs.

Draco's expression was an unreadable mixture of emotions. His posture was stiff. His demeanor brittle. A facade like Pansy's. "When you came out of your heat, you turned literally grey with horror when you realized it was me with you. I assumed you wanted me to leave." There was raw hurt in his voice.

"I was confused. You're—you." She gestured awkwardly toward him. "We'd never even had an entire conversation with each other at that point. You had acted like the mere smell of me made you sick only a few days before. What did you expect me to be but confused? I wasn't even sure what was real at the time. And then you said you only were there because you owed me for testifying. And then you left!" Her voice broke off briefly, and she swallowed a hard lump in her throat. "I assumed it was because I'm Muggle-born. That it was why you tried to leave at the beginning, and why you didn't stay at the end. All the other Alphas were mooning over me, and you wouldn't even look in my direction. I assumed you didn't want anything to do with me."

She folded her arms tightly around herself.

"My fucking god," Draco's expression was squarely a mixture of confusion and horror. "Then—why are you sleeping with me? If you're so sure I'd never willingly touch a Muggle-born?"

Hermione flushed and stared down at her shoes. She could feel the heat in the tips of her ears. As she tried to speak, her throat felt so tight it was difficult to force the words out.

"If I'd pushed for Anthony's expulsion due to Alpha behavior, there was a chance that the Goldsteins could have used it to cause yours too. And you—saved me. So I said he could stay." She twisted her wand in her hands.

"You—" Draco choked out the word but Hermione pressed on.

"McGonagall said I needed to try to find a way to ensure something like that didn't happen again. I was already barely going out at that point. Hogwarts is—" her voice grew bitter, "—about as big a cage as I can hope for as long as I'm unbound. It's not like I can safely go anywhere else without getting soulbound first. If I'd withdrawn immediately, it would have meant going and spending the rest of my life on a Dragon Reserve. That's part of why I started looking into an ovariectomy. But I needed a stop-gap measure, while I waited to hear back. So—that's why I asked if you'd scent-mark me. After the way you acted in the classroom when I was in sub-space, I thought—even if you didn't like me, maybe you wouldn't mind as long as—as long as no one knew, and I didn't—didn't act like it meant anything."

"No," Malfoy said.

Hermione looked up at him confused. "No?"

"No," he said firmly. "This isn't—," he turned and proceeded to walk straight into the wall and lean against it, face first, for several seconds. "No. No. No no no no no no no."

Hermione stood hesitating in confusion. "So—wait. You thought I asked you to scent-mark me because if you didn't I was going to have you thrown into Azkaban?" Her knees abruptly gave out, and she sat down on the floor in the middle of the hallway. "Is that why you agreed to sleep with me?"

She clapped her hands over her mouth, feeling as though she were on the verge of hyperventilating. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it, and her chest kept jerking as she tried to breathe.

Draco looked over sharply. "What? No. You said you trusted me. You said you couldn't do anything about Goldstein." He buried his face in his hands. "I assumed the reason you trusted me was because you had a failsafe if I ever crossed the line and did anything you didn't want."

"But I told you why I trusted you," Hermione said, throwing her hands up incredulously and suddenly feeling angry with him. "Because you stopped. You didn't bite me during my heat, even though that's a regarded as an utterly irresistible biological imperative. When I was in the subspace, you stopped even when I was throwing myself at you. That's why I trust you. It doesn't have anything to do with Azkaban."

Draco turned and thudded his forehead against the wall repeatedly.

"Oh my god. Oh my god!" Hermione kept sitting in the middle of the floor trying to wrap her head around everything. "McGonagall said she'd speak to you and get your version of events. She was supposed to make sure you were alright, not threaten to expel you. How did this happen?"

She felt on the verge of tears; whether from horror or rage she wasn't sure. She pressed her wrists together.

"Granger, it's not your fault," Draco was suddenly on the floor beside her, pulling her into his arms. "Don't—you didn't sexually assault me or blackmail me. Don't cry."

Hermione burrowed against him, clinging like a barnacle. She buried her nose against his scent glands and tried to calm down.

"I'm going to scream at McGonagall," she mumbled into his shoulder. "I'm going to send her howlers every day for the rest of her life. And then I'm going to send them to her grave."

Draco's hold around her shoulders tightened.

"So—you aren't—you don't mind being around me even though I'm Muggle-born?" Hermione finally asked.

"No," Draco's tone was slightly offended.

Hermione gave a small sob of relief.

"Good grief, Granger, why didn't you just ask?"

"Because I didn't know what to do if I did and you said yes." She blushed and pressed her face more firmly against his neck. "Oh god, you have no idea—I'm so sorry about everything. I don't even know where to begin."

There was a pause and she sat there hugging him. "You are not walking the halls alone anymore," she said at last.

He scoffed. "Granger, I don't need a bodyguard. They can't usually find me, anyway."

"That's not good enough. You're my protection. There's no reason I can't be the same for you. You can't hide in empty classrooms all year hoping none of the hundreds of students here don't stumble across you."

"I don't need you to make me your latest charitable cause."

Hermione sat up so she could study his face. "Is—that what I am to you? A charitable cause? Something obligatory?"

"No. But you'll risk your reputation being associated with me. Your showdown with Burbage will probably end up hurting you enough."

Hermione snorted with disbelief. "Do you think I care about that? I stuck by Harry when the whole world, including Ron, thought he cheated to get into the Tri-Wizard tournament. And when he was accused of being insane for saying Voldemort was back. And when he was undesirable number one. When exactly do you think I've ever cared about my reputation? I would love to see someone try to accuse me of having secret Death Eater sympathies!"

The ridiculousness of everything suddenly struck her and she started laughing. It was all just too much. The whole day. The whole school year. Then a thought abruptly occurred to her. "Wait, Draco; is that why you never look at me or acknowledge me at all when we aren't—together?"

His expression was tense. "I assumed that was how you wanted it, based on everything you said when you proposed the idea."

Hermione gave a disbelieving gasp as she stared at him. Then she buried her face in her hands and groaned. "How did this happen? I don't understand."

"You said 'not friends,' those were your words," Draco said stiffly.

"Because you said you were "interested", but then you looked about as thrilled as if you'd agreed to take a mandrake to bed. I thought maybe the association would get you disinherited or something."

Malfoy blinked and stared at her blankly. Hermione drew her chin in defensively. "Sirius and Andromeda were both disowned for various associations with Muggle-borns."

Draco tilted his head back and stared up at ceiling for several seconds. "First of all," he said in a tight voice, "if I fucking cared about that, I wouldn't be having a semi-secret affair with you at all. Secondly, there's a fairly long tradition of approximately eight hundred years of Malfoys only having one male child each generation. The ancestral magic won't allow to manor to go anyone but me. My father would have to have me killed. If he disinherited me from the estate and broke the entail, there's no one to leave it to. It would go to the Crown. My father has loathed Elizabeth the Second ever since she let her corgis bite him."

He dragged a hand across his face. "The reason I wasn't brimming with elation at the time was because I thought you only asked me because of McGonagall's threat."

They sat for several minutes reeling and trying to absorb the breadth of their miscommunication.

Hermione kept exhaling short incredulous breaths through her mouth as she sat on Draco's lap, gripping his robes and trying reconfigure everything for herself. Her head felt light and was starting to throb as she struggled wrap her mind around it all.

"This is just—unbelievable," she said after several minutes. "It shouldn't even be possible for things to get this tangled."

Her jaw was so tight with outrage she wanted to bite something. She suddenly stood up. "We are going to the Headmistress' office. I want to know why on earth she did this."

"Granger—," Draco started as she gripped him by the wrist and pull him to his feet. "You don't need to. This isn't—"

"She did the exact opposite of what I asked her to. She's had new portraits added all over the castle to keep an eye on me. So I'm certain she's known what's been happening to you and she's just ignored it. Well, I'm not going to ignore this. Besides, I'm not leaving you alone; I've got a lot of wands to turn in; and I'm half-afraid that either of us have another conversation alone with her things will get all mixed up again."

She pulled him down the hallways. He didn't exactly fight or resist, but he walked just slow enough to ensure she was constantly aware of how resignedly he was cooperating.

When she arrived at the Gargoyle statue, she glared at it. "She's expecting me, I'm sure."

The statue spun and revealed the stairway.

"Headmistress, I would like a meeting," Hermione announced stiffly the moment she reached the top of the stairs.

Minerva McGonagall looked up from a scroll and slipped her quill into a inkwell. "Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy, please sit down."

Draco sat down. Hermione did not; she stood staring down at her deeply admired former head of house. Hermione's hands were angrily gripping her hips.

"Are you here to scold me, Miss Granger?" McGonagall said in a tart voice.

"Why did you tell Draco that his presence during my—heat was against my will?"

McGonagall adjusted her spectacles and stared at Hermione. "It was, wasn't it? You told me quite specifically that you did not wish for an Alpha to be present for it. I spent six days waiting for you to re-emerge after I found the wards breached without knowing how he had even gotten in or whether he might be forcibly soulbonding you." McGonagall's voice grew tight, then her expression flickered.

"However, when I spoke to Mr Malfoy, I said nothing about it being against your will. I informed him, as you requested, that you were profoundly regretful. Then I reminded him that any of your actions during that time were not your responsibility; in order to ensure he did not think he somehow had grounds to hold you culpable. I have taught Slytherin students for four decades; they have very reliable instinct for self-preservation that often capitalizes upon the better nature of others. Given his precarious position, I was concerned that if I informed Mr Malfoy of your fears, he might use it to guilt you into something. I wanted to be clear that you were not someone who I would tolerate trifling with. Based on what he said during our meeting, it was clear that your concerns regarding his consent were unfounded. Which I informed you of."

"That's not how he understood it," Hermione said angrily. "This whole time—we both thought—," she cut herself off. She didn't feel ready to go into it all with McGonagall.

"And he's being bullied!" Hermione wrenched all the wands out of her pocket and smacked them down on the top of the Headmistress' desk. "There were more than fifteen students who had him cornered in one of the abandoned hallways. I took the liberty of taking their wands. I told them they could come get them from you."

"Thank you," McGonagall said in a dry tone as she gathered up the wands and put them into a drawer.

"Ginny told me about all the new portraits. So I know you know about the kinds of things they were doing and saying to him. Why aren't you doing anything about it? Why isn't anyone doing anything anything about it?"

Hermione's chest was heaving in outrage. Draco was utterly silent, staring at the floor.

McGonagall arched an eyebrow. "Do you know how difficult it is to run a school of over eight hundred grieving and traumatized students four months after a war? No, you don't. I was highly opposed to Mr Malfoy's return to this school. The animosity between the other houses and Slytherin is fraught enough without the presence of someone who actually bore the Dark Mark and spent an entire year endeavoring to assassinate Albus Dumbledore." McGonagall gave Draco a cold, pointed look. "The students I have been placed in charge of are grieving; they are guilt-ridden by the friends and loved ones who have recently died. Placing Mr Malfoy here so soon after the Battle of Hogwarts was like laying a match atop a keg of gunpowder. When the Chief Warlock informed of the Wizengamot's intentions to place him under probation here, I refused to accept him. When I said as much, I was informed that in that case Mr Malfoy would be immediately sentenced to a five years in Azkaban."

Hermione flinched slightly. McGonagall looked sternly at Hermione.

"I agreed. I am not a monster, nor am I neglectful or unaware of my responsibilities as Headmistress.  However, I am one woman, training multiple new professors to fill positions they are far from adequately prepared for, dealing with prefects who are tired of responsibility, and an Omega among eleven Alphas. There are limitations to what I can do. I have no choice but to prioritize certain issues. Cornelius Burbage and his friends have a specific goal of provoking Mr Malfoy's expulsion. They know that restricts them in what they are permitted to do to harass him. I am well aware of the terms of Mr Malfoy's probation. When I am informed of any severe attacks, I have it immediately attended to. But I am limited in resources—and in trust-worthy prefects. I cannot prioritize the wellbeing of Mr Malfoy over everything else."

Hermione was silent for a moment and her eyes dropped down to her shoes.

"Well, you can have one more prefect now." She looked up at McGonagall. "If there are no objections, I would like my prefect badge back."