Maybe she knew it would end up like this.

After all, her brain tried to tell her—tried to warn her. That brilliant, sensible, logical mind of hers knew perfectly well from the start who the Ministry of Magic was marrying her off to—who they were imprisoning her to. They handed Draco Malfoy the key when they tightened shackles around her wrists and she told them the message her brain had been shouting at her since the moment the sorting hat called out his name: run.

Run from the cruel boy who bullied her.

Run from the arrogant boy who thought she was unfit to breathe the same air as him.

Run from the terrified boy who let Death Eaters into Hogwarts castle.

She tried to, of course. Because Hermione Jean Granger always listened to rational thought before letting pesky, instinctive emotions get the best of her. Plenty of times she took flight, ready to jump, swim, sink, or crawl away from Draco, but he always caught up to her.

When she expected brutal retaliation for her protest and rejection, all he would give her was a whisper of I'm just trying to get to know you, Granger.

Her cognizant, consistent brain tried to warn her that predators would do anything to coax their prey, but untrustworthy, flooding hormones and an inept, blind heart yelled over all reasonable thought. When his grey eyes glowed like moonlight, when he left caressing fingerprints on her skin, and when he left the taste of his tongue against hers, Hermione believed him.

I forgive you, Draco.

What a silly, lovesick idiot the Brightest Witch of the Age had been to believe he was not there to push, drown, or steady her against the fall.

I have Granger right where I need her.

He was right. God, even in the good, blind, fake days, Hermione would never admit that Draco Malfoy was right about anything, but he was right about this. About her—about where he had her. She had thought it had been the clouds, all pink and lilac colors, but it was an abysis, dark and cold. His foot on her back and his hands over her eyes, intent on never letting her see or climb out for the light.

"Where the hell have you been—?"

"Fuck sakes, 'Mione—"

Hands wrapped around Hermione's shoulders and wrists, yanking her from the dimly lit corridor she had been wandering. Her poor, brilliant head was barely clinging on to sanity from the tornado currently wrecking havoc, but somehow it knew to guide her where she needed to be.

"'Mione," Harry spoke again, his arms enveloping tight around her trembling frame. His previous annoyance, which had been a few degrees less in anger than Ginny's, was only an echo now as worry took over. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Not hurt, Hermione wanted to tell him, Ginny's hands now searching to find evidence of any outside wound, I'm shattered into lone atoms.

"You missed the wedding," he continued as Ginny took a step back now, her arms folding across her chest. "Where have you been? Gin and I've been glued to the Mauraders Map since Malfoy told us he couldn't find you."

How can he not, Hermione almost said, but a fresh wave of tears burned past her lashes, soaking Harry's old, tattered Wierd Sisters t-shirt, I'm everywhere. He turned me to fragments the wind scattered.

A warm hand touched her shoulder again. "I'll give you two a minute," murmured Ginny, her thumb brushing gently on the skin Hermione's pretty dress exposed. "She needs you."

"Gin—"

"You're rubbish at this feeling thing, Harry," there should have been laughter underlining her words, Hermione knew, but the anger Ginny had felt before had now transformed into the same worry etched across her husband's face, "but for some reason she always finds comfort with you. While I could take it personally, seeing as I've been known to be quite wise and not emotionally inept, you're her best friend. Sort her out."

This time he can't, Hermione wanted to tell Ginny, but her fingers gripped Harry's t-shirt even more desperately, Draco left nothing to put back together.

She should've known.

Hermione Granger should've known she could not expect to live a fairytale life with Draco Malfoy.

Not when the beginning and the middle were drenched in hatred and blood. How could she believe, then, the ending would be different? Because the embers beneath his fingertips warmed not scorched her skin with every intimate touch? Because he had not tried to polish his jagged pieces, but showed her all the sharp edges? Because he showed her his scars when she pulled down the sleeves of her jumpers and blouses, embarassed and terrified of her own? Because he held her at night when they could not sleep, the wind too sharp and the moonlight too treacherous, his arms protecting her from the monsters both saw in the shadows?

This time I won't let them hurt you, Granger. I promise.

She should've known he'd do it himself.

Once upon a time, Draco Malfoy loved to torment Harry Potter's mudblood.

"It wasn't real," Hermione whimpered to herself, the brutal, devestating words echoing off Harry's bones. "None of it was real."

"What wasn't real?" asked Harry, his left arm loosening around her waist so his hand could cup the side of her face. She did not want to leave the safe, warm shelter against his chest, but he carefully guided her back.

Harry was looking at Hermione like he did after Malfoy Manor; like Bellatrix Lestrange had carved away a part of her and he was trying to figure out what was left behind. She was scarred, shaken, and scared, but she had not been widdled down by a knife and a healing, foul word on her arm.

But now she felt like a shell.

I don't love Granger.

"Lavender's right, Harry," she cried, his face blurring by the tsunami tide crashing down her cheeks, "it takes guts to believe in people. And I gave everything I had left to believe in him. But it wasn't real."

She reeled herself into his chest again; for a moment, Harry let her. He was terrified of emotional outbursts, that had always been true, but this was Hermione. A part of him wanted her to cry, scream, or curse it out, just like she'd done when Ron broke her heart the first time, but Harry remembered the silence when Ron broke it the second time.

"This is about Malfoy, isn't it?"

She gasped at the name, her nails digging into Harry's chest.

"I'll kill him, Hermione," he told her, guiding her back a few steps. "I don't know what the hell he's done, but I'll kill him. I'll even use that bullshit Chosen One card to get away with it."

He's killed me, she wanted to scream, but she muttered different words, "He lied, Harry. He made me fall—made me crash—and it wasn't real. He wants my reputation, not me."

She should've known.

Hermione Granger should've known the only thing Draco Malfoy knew how to do was survive at any cost.

I know we're not getting married because of a choice you or I made, but it doesn't have to be something off a checklist. A promise from me to you, Hermione, to one day be a real family.

He never meant it.

How could he? Hermione had been sure Draco had never known anything that was real. And because he hadn't, she gave up her heart to him. She had been reluctant and terrified, but his eyes were soft moonlight when they saw her offering.

Run, her mind had warned, predators will do anything to coax their prey.

But Hermione stayed—God, she learned to stay because she wanted his promise.

She wanted to sew Malfoy into her name and build something better, real, and new from it.

"I'll get Ron—No, I'll get Ginny," Harry said through clenched teeth. "She'll hex Malfoy's bits off. Then I'll rearrange his stupid, pointy face. The muggle way. You'll move out of that chamber and come here. After Hogwarts, too. Right after your own fucking wedding, too."

Hermione froze against Harry's chest.

I have Granger right where I need her.

"I-I need...I need to go," Hermione sputtered, wrapping trembling fingers around Harry's elbows to push herself free. "I need to go to the Owlery."

"What—Hermione!" Harry shouted, but she was running to the door. "Fuck sakes, what the hell was that even—Ow!"

"HARRY—JAMES—POTTER," Ginny yelled as she stormed out of their bedroom, an extendable ear still clutched in her hand as the other smacked Harry upside the head again. "Do you have any bloody clue what you've just done?"

Harry leaped behind their couch, clutching a cushion over his head. "Why am I in trouble?" he howled. "I said we'd kill him! I was helping!"

"You reminded her of her first choice, you prat! The one she wanted before she agreed to marry Malfoy!"

Harry did not bother to dodge the extendable ear that came hurling at his face.

Fuck.

He really was shit at this.

"Check again—"

"Mr. Malfoy—"

"Check again—"

"Mr. Malfoy—"

"You're the fucking Headmistress and your top student is missing—check again!" Draco snarled, his fists coming down on the desk. "Check with every fucking ghost, with the giant fucking squid if you have to, and in every fucking nook and cranny this castle has. Turn everything upside down until you find Granger!"

He was hardly breathing, but Minerva McGonagall was looking at him like the air was only evading his own lungs. She was sat there, in her regal chair, hard, judging eyes looking at him through thin glasses like it was not the rest of the world that was fraying at the edges, threatening to lose all color, all warmth, all sound.

Where the hell was Hermione?

He had left her on that hill overlooking the Black Lake, pretty, lacy emerald dress and dark, curly tresses caressed by the soft wind.

When he returned from reeling Blaise from jumping off the edge, there was a growing grey in the treacherous sky and Hermione was gone.

Draco stood at the altar with his best mate, but his eyes had continued to scan every little twitch among the crowd like it was Hermione apparating back into his proximity.

Something was wrong.

Despite how easily frustrated Blaise made her, Draco knew Hermione liked him. She considered him a friend; someone he would catch her with at her favorite table in the library, someone she'd wear a smile for when greeted with follow-up questions to one of her explanations, someone who made her ask questions to when his actions and words made absolutely no sense.

Hermione wouldn't have missed Blaise Zabini's wedding—especially if Draco would be standing at the altar beside him, a promise in his silver eyes that he fancied the way she looked in green, but soon they would find themselves in Blaise and Cho's places, too.

"Potter has that map," he said through clenched teeth, his hands trembling at his sides when he remembered the ceremony ending and Hermione had yet to appear. "He said he'd use it to help me find Granger, but Boy Wonder has once again decided his own life takes precedence over his best friend. If he can't be arsed to leave the Weaslette for a fucking moment, the least he can do is let us have that bloody map to find my betrothed."

McGonagall refolded her old, wrinkly hands over her desk as she continued to eye Draco like she was attempting to decipher the words coming out of his mouth.

"What?" he demanded, pushing himself up to his feet.

"The last time we spoke, Mr. Malfoy," said the Headmistress, unmoved by yet another loud, impolite outburst, "I had to convince you to look at the bigger picture. You have always been a smart, cunning boy, so you already knew the advantages marrying Hermione Granger would bring, but you were still hesitant. I misjudged then; I thought that reluctance was based on blood status, but you wanted connection. After what you had endured, after everything this war took, you wanted to be with someone who would help you heal. You wanted someone you could love."

I know we're not getting married because of a choice you or I made, but it doesn't have to be something off a checklist. A promise from me to you, Hermione, to one day be a real family.

He had meant it.

Draco had meant every word he ever whispered into the crook of Hermione's neck or against her ear.

He had just not known how to accept it.

"You two are more alike than even you realized," said McGonagall, a twinkle in her eye that stirred grief and guilt in Draco at the way it resembled the old man at the top of the Astronomy Tower offering an impossible choice. "And it may come as a shock to you, Mr. Malfoy, but the sorting hat calling out your name for Miss Granger was not as surprising as you'd believe."

"Because a Death Eater is the first choice for a war hero?" Draco asked with an impatient huff. "Yes, the fairytale writes itself."

He expected a sharp reprimand from the Headmistress, but whatever she was going to divulge was cut short by her office door opening.

Relief unlike anything Draco had ever felt before flooded and doused the fire still threatening to turn everything to ash when Hermione's beautiful brown eyes stared at him from the distance. Somehow, he must have sprouted wings by the way he flew toward her. His left arm wrapped around her waist as his right hand sunk into her wild curls, pushing her into his chest.

Where the hell were you, Hermione?

I missed you.

Please don't ever fucking disappear on me again.

"You missed Blaise's wedding," he told her instead of what he truly wanted to say, brows furrowing as Hermione gripped his jumper, her nails sinking in. "He performed a provocative dance you would've been appalled or grossly entertained by."

You're here.

Where'd you go, Hermione?

Please don't ever fucking leave me again.

"He didn't let Chang throw the bouquet. Well, he did, but he stole it back from Romilda Vane and magicked the flowers to sing out your name. He thought you'd like the muggle tradition," continued Draco, whispering the words into her hair as her body trembled in his arms.

I would've torn this castle apart to find you.

I would've turned this whole world to shreds if you didn't come back.

Where'd you go, Hermione?

"Let's go home," Draco said, desperate to leave the Headmistress' office, desperate to press her against a wall or their mattress, his hands and mouth on her like she had been gone a lifetime.

She pushed his hands away like her body was not begging for her to hold on to him, tucking herself under his chin like this was just another nightmare they were going to wake up from and conquer together.

"You should've told me," Hermione murmured, trying not to spill the tears that distorted the edges of her world. "I was going to marry you anyway. You didn't have to lie, Malfoy. If you had put your cards on the table that night in the old Transfiguration classroom—if you would've told me what you really needed me for, I would've given you my name. Instead you took the only thing I had left."

"Hermione, what—?"

"The war took a lot from me, even my first love," she cut across another honey-dipped lie she knew Draco would use to keep her in place. "Ron barely left me with scraps of my own heart, but I protected what was left because love and hope had to endure. It had to. That's why I didn't let you in, that's why I couldn't be civil with you, because I wasn't going to let you taint that, but you sunk your teeth in anyway. You took it away by pretending."

"I don't know what you heard, but I—"

"'I have Granger right where I want her'," said Hermione, repeating the words that had caused an unrelenting hurricane inside her head since she heard them.

Draco faltered; the hand trying to reach out to her, the hand trying to place his fingers in the traces he had left on her skin, fell before reaching its destination.

"I knew you always hated me, Malfoy," she continued, "but even this was cruel for someone like you."

I love her, but I can't be anything other than a Death Eater.

I love her, but I can't tell her that.

Those were the words Draco had forced into the dark pit of his stomach out of fear of what would bloom if he gave them life. He had been a coward not to say them, just as he had been a coward all of his life, running from what was right because he had always been too comfortable in the shade of the moon to bask in the revealing, warm sunlight—but he had to say them now.

He had to tell Hermione that nothing had gone according to plan.

He had to tell Hermione he stumbled and dove straight off the edge before she even thought he was worthy of her forgiveness.

He had to tell Hermione that ring on her finger was as good as an Unbreakable Vow.

"I've got nothing left, Professor," Hermione turned to McGonagall, twisting the silver band off her ring finger. She set it on the desk, in the dent Draco had made when his fists had come crashing down on the old wood. "That night in your old classroom, you said this world made me Hermione Granger, but you were wrong. I was someone before it, but this world stopped me from knowing who that could've been. I'm going to find out now."

"Miss Granger, what is happening? You cannot—"

Draco was choking on the smoke from the wildfire he had set off, but he still forced himself to reach out. His shaking fingers circled around her left wrist, reeling her back those agonizing steps she had but between them.

"Please," he managed with a breath, "I'm sorry."

The storm in Hermione's eyes dripped down her cheeks. "You're not."

Draco tightened his hold, the smoke coagulating in his lungs. "I love—"

"Don't." With her last bit of Gryffindor courage, Hermione pulled herself free. She stumbled back, her heart protesting, demanding for Draco, but she was no longer going to listen to the weak, feeble thing. "No more lies, Malfoy."

Run, her mind had warned then as it warned now, predators will do anything to coax their prey.