Well, this is it - what you've waited fifteen chapters for. You should be thankful really, my original fiction readers usually wait twenty chapters for a kiss. Happy reading!

x Noelle

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Summons from a distance.

breathe. She didn't dare to. She held her breath because it was too precious a moment to break.

The pressure of his lips on hers were light, almost cautious, which she found fitting in a time like this. Her chest tightened and her head spun with something like the heady realisation that Draco Malfoy was kissing her, actually kissing her, because it often felt like he was far too distant from her and this, this was perfect.

And so she kissed him back, moving her lips tentatively against his. Just lips against lips, no tongue, no teeth; simple as ever. His scent invaded her senses like the best kind of aphrodisiac there ever was, and she breathed him in, sliding her fingers gently up his arm to draw him closer. Because that was all she ever wanted, really. Just him - closer.

But then Draco froze under her touch, and it was all over.

He drew away quickly, his eyes almost obsidian as he averted his gaze. She stared at him warily. "Draco?"

"You should get some rest," he replied calmly, taking the bowl from the dresser and handing it to her. He was silent as she drank all of it and when she was done, he gently eased her back down onto the bed, drawing the covers back over her.

But he didn't leave, not this time. And, after a moment's hesitation, he pulled the leather chair over to her bedside and settled down in it. His hand found hers under the blanket and he held on tight. It was funny, because she'd always treated him like he was her lifeline and somehow his grip seemed to suggest otherwise.

"Sleep, Granger."

A tiny smile curved her lips. He was right next to her, where she'd always wanted him to be. And that was all that mattered.

"Goodnight, Draco."

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Draco was more than surprised to find that none of his flatmates were in their respective rooms the next morning. Pansy was sprawled on the sofa, while Theo slept in a huddle on the floor. Only Blaise was awake, even though it was only six in the morning.

"Morning," Blaise was brewing a fresh pot of coffee and he didn't even turn as Draco entered the kitchen.

Draco frowned as he noticed the bruises under Blaise's eyes. "Did you even sleep at all?"

"No. I was up all night brewing these," Blaised gestured briefly to the phials on the counter, each arranged according to their medicinal purpose. "Have Hermione drink these after breakfast. There's more in the cupboard for the next few days. How is she?"

"I don't know," Draco answered truthfully. He still reeled from the previous day's events, and he hadn't a clue how to deal with Hermione after their kiss. He shot a glance at Theo and Pansy in the living room and his frown deepened. "They didn't sleep much either?"

"Not until three for Theo, and Pansy only fell asleep about an hour ago. We were worried, mate," Blaise added, when Draco shot him a confused look. "You don't know how scared we were when we came back and saw bloodstains all over the place."

Draco went white. "What?"

"Theo saw the worst of it. Hermione used the Protean charm to call for help and he was the first one back. He gave her some blood-replenishing potion because she'd already lost a lot of blood. If he'd been any later, Hermione would've been a lot worse. Pansy and I only came back about a half hour later and by then, the apartment had all kinds of bloodstains all over because Theo had been running around trying to find the bloody potion. You should've seen your room. There was blood everywhere."

Blaise's words hit him like a ton of bricks. "I forgot the phials," he said at last. His voice was strangled, but he could hardly care less. How the fuck had he forgotten the one connection he had to Hermione?

Blaise placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's not your fault. Pansy blamed herself earlier but it wasn't her fault either. None of us knew, not even Hermione."

Draco didn't feel any better. How could he, when he was the one person who was never supposed to fail Hermione ever since he found her? But he did anyway, in his usual fumbling way, and she still looked at him like he hung the moon. He wasn't blind to any of that.

"Are you going in to work today?" Blaise's voice interrupted his thoughts, and Draco shook his head. Blaise smirked knowingly. "Thought so. I'll cover for you; don't worry about it. Just make sure Hermione gets better."

Draco mentally swore on Salazar's soul that he would. The other three soon left for work, despite being utterly drained from the previous day. But it was an unspoken agreement between the four of them for as long as they had been living in the apartment together - they could never skip work together. It was far too great a risk at a time like this.

Sometime later, he returned to the room with breakfast and healing potions. He was just in time to see Hermione stirring awake. He set the food and medicine down, then strode to the bed to help her sit up. Once she was propped comfortably against the pillows, he studied her carefully. "How're you feeling, Granger?"

Her lips tilted up in a soft smile. "I'm alright."

He tried to pretend like her answer and her smile didn't affect him, but it did. It really did. A part of him was terrified that he was finally caving in and being by her side even though he wasn't supposed to, but another part of him revelled in the closeness again, because, well, he fucking missed her. She was like the brightest of suns on the coldest of winter days and he couldn't help but soak her in.

Even after she finished her breakfast, he found himself unable to leave. She remained seated on the bed while he lounged in his chair. Things were comfortable between them once again, the way it had always been.

"About Theo..." she began at last. "I don't know if I was hallucinating yesterday but I think I saw him. Did I?"

Draco nodded. "He was the first to find you. Probably saved your life by giving you the blood-replenishing potion."

Her eyes widened. "Can I - can I talk to him when he gets back?"

"You want to talk to Theo?"

"To thank him," she turned on her side and took Draco's hand, pressing it beneath her cheek. And she kept it there even as her eyes began to fall shut. "Does this mean that I-I no longer have to stay in hiding...since everyone knows about me?"

Draco hadn't even thought much about this, but now that she'd brought it up, he realised that she was right. There was no need for Hermione to stay hidden, she was no longer his secret, she was theirs.

He didn't know what sort of changes this could bring about.

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Theo was seldom ever nervous, because being a nervous Death-Eater was just plain stupid and ridiculous, but this was one of the rare few times. He leaned against the counter, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for Blaise and Pansy to leave Draco's room.

He'd just learnt earlier that evening that Hermione Granger wanted to talk to him. Which was about time, because he was the last to know about her, but then Blaise had to scare him off with talk about how Hermione was different from the old tenacious, feisty, idiotic Gryffindor she used to be.

For Merlin's sake. How different could she possibly be?

Then again, he wasn't blind to the changes this war had brought about on the people in his life.

"Theo."

He glanced up at Pansy's voice. She beckoned him over as she stepped out of the room with Blaise following. He pushed himself off the counter and sauntered over to them, only to flinch when she jabbed him with her elbow. "Ow, what the hell?"

"Be nice," she hissed.

He scowled, pushed past her and went into the room. He stopped short once he was properly inside. The mental image of Hermione sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood was vivid, and he swallowed hard. Blood was fine, blood was just blood, but it was different when the blood belonged to someone whose name he actually knew.

"Shut the door behind you."

Draco's voice snapped him out of the horrible memory. Theo kicked the door shut and turned to Hermione. She was seated on the bed, gazing up at him with wide brown eyes. Her hand was intertwined with Draco's as he sat next to her.

"Granger, you remember Theodore Nott," Draco said to the girl beside him. "Fellow Slytherin and, by extension, one of your greatest enemies during Hogwarts days."

Hermione's lips quirked, but Theo noticed that it was a shy sort of smile - unlike the confident one he remembered back at Hogwarts.

"Yes - yes, I think I remember." A tiny frown surfaced on Hermione's forehead, before it quickly cleared and she gazed up at him questioningly. "Were you one of the boys who...made fun of me in Potions class?"

"Yes," Theo was surprised that she still remembered. He let out a rather self-conscious laugh. "Sorry 'bout that."

"That's okay. It's all in the past now."

A lengthy pause followed. It was the kind he hated, so he wracked his brains to come up with something to say.

"If it helps, the other boy who made fun of you in that class was Draco," was all he could come up with.

Draco threw a frosty look his way, but Hermione's smile widened. "Yes, I - I remember that too. Thank you, by the way," she added, "for saving my life last night."

"Oh, that," he quickly brushed it off with a nonchalant laugh. "Yeah, it's nothing - least I could do. So how long have you been staying here?"

Hermione glanced unsurely at Draco before frowning. "Over a month, I think." She tugged hesitantly at the hem of her jumper, which Theo belatedly realised looked completely oversized on her. Because it wasn't hers, it was obviously Draco's.

Merlin, was Pansy actually right about them?

Theo grinned. "Over a month, huh? So listen, if you're tired of wearing Draco's clothes all the time, I've got some clothes from a couple of girls who spent the night; you can have them if you want."

"Oh," and then Hermione's eyes danced and they seemed far more wicked than Pansy's ever were. "Like those two girls you brought home together the other day?"

Draco smirked amidst her amused giggles, and Theo thought that life had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting with Hermione Granger thrown into the mix.

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"Draco? Are you awake?"

Of course he was. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good night's sleep. Perhaps he would once the war was over, although he didn't really know if it would ever end. He glanced over at Hermione, who seemed equally as awake as he was. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." The hesitation on her face told him otherwise. She bit her lip and picked at a frayed thread on her blanket. "I just - remember that night? When someone lit the phials and there was a name - "

He froze.

" - Alec - " her voice trailed off, as if the word was physically painful to say aloud.

Suddenly, the pieces fell into place.

He bolted upright. "Alecto Carrow - was she one of them?"

She nodded. "I didn't remember...until I saw the phial."

He drew a shaky breath. He'd been evading this topic for so long because he hadn't wanted to push her, but now seemed like right time to finally ask. "I've wanted to ask you this for awhile now," he began. "About your - "

" - capture," she finished, with a faint smile. Her hand sought his, which he gave without a moment's hesitation. "I've always wondered why you didn't ask. I thought maybe you had seen the phial of memories that Pansy took."

"I haven't," he admitted. "I don't want to use Legilimency on you. You're not the enemy."

"Neither are you," she reminded him softly, and his breath caught for a moment because she had eased away his insecurities with just three words. She shifted closer to him even though he seemed miles away on his chair.

"I remember - flashes," she started, haltingly. Her voice was small and almost inaudible, but she spoke loud enough only for him to hear. "I don't even remember how I ended up where I did, Draco, I just remember that I was...there, in some empty room. In many empty rooms. They kept me at different places, and gave me food and water - but just barely enough so that I'd begin to starve, but then they'd be back with more food and water. I spent many days alone - I think that's what I remember most - just...waiting, I guess. They came in every few days and I don't remember most of those parts, but it was painful. They just used the Cruciatus curse on me a lot - "

His hand tightened on hers. He saw red then, he really did, and he wanted nothing more than to find Alecto Carrow at that moment and tear her apart. Not use the Avada on her, no, that was far too simple and too quick a death for her.

He now understood how Pansy felt about Fenrir Greyback because he felt the same. He wanted to rip Alecto fucking Carrow apart limb by limb, until she was nothing but a limbless bloodied body writhing and suffering on the ground and even then it still wouldn't be enough, he would -

"Draco." Hermione's gentle voice pulled him out of his dark thoughts. He glanced over at her, only to find her watching him with wide-eyed concern.

He cleared the thoughts from his head and got up from the chair. He didn't know who was more surprised - him or her, when he sat down on the bed next to her, leaning against the headboard just as she was, before pulling her into his arms. "You don't have to continue if you don't want to."

"It's okay," came her quiet reply. "I don't mind telling you what happened. I just...wish I could remember more. I do remember marking the walls though." She lifted a hand to trace the wall next to the bed. Her finger counted off four vertical strokes before finishing off with a horizontal fifth. "There was this place that had a old wall made of...decaying wood, I think. And I used my fingernails to carve the days in. So that I-I could remember something, at least. I also remember how some people sent me food, just days before you found me. I was on the verge of starving, so they saved my life. Their voices kept me alive most nights. Are they..."

She looked at him, a silent question in her eyes. He knew what she wanted to ask. It killed him to have to tell her the truth. But if that was what she wanted, he wouldn't give her any less. "Yes."

"Oh," she whispered. "I see."

Her eyes misted and she pressed her face against his chest, weeping silent tears into his jumper. And she was quiet for a long while after, so long that he knew she wasn't going to say another word about what had happened, at least for the night. So he just held her, because when it came to Hermione Granger, it seemed like that was all he could do sometimes, while the world outside spun madly on.