Bit late but still a weekend update! Huge thanks to those of you who reminded me. Also, lately, Wattpad has been glitching a lot and I've had trouble posting this chapter. If you've received a notif and/or are able to read this chapter, please comment so I won't have to re-fix this! Thanks very much and enjoy!

x Noelle

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Counter curse to Sectumsempra.

awhile for Theo to find Hermione, since she'd been under the Cloak. They finally met several streets away, where she was ushering a group of people towards the base, and he'd brought her back before the Death-Eaters could track them down.

Andromeda's house was nothing but pandemonium when Hermione apparated back with Theo. Teddy was crying in the background as Grus soothed him, while Neville, Pansy and Luna were in the kitchen searching through the shelves. There was a crowd surrounding the sofa, yells and shouts as a heated conversation ensued, Ginny's hysterical voice and Ron's aggravated one and Harry's calm one. Several members of the D.A. were also there, and they were all drowning each other out with their frantic input.

"What the hell – " Theo shook his head and pushed his way through, Hermione following closely behind.

When she caught a glimpse of the situation, she felt the air leave her lungs. Draco was lying there, blood soaked through his clothes, his shirt buttons left open to reveal large, slash wounds across his chest that were still bleeding freely, his face so startlingly white that he seemed dead.

Was he dead?

Hermione felt a sob leave her throat. No, he couldn't be.

"Shit," Theo swore. Andromeda and Blaise were mumbling incantations under their breath, their wands held out over Draco. "What happened?"

A babble of voices answered him all at once, but Hermione heard the words Sectumsempra somewhere in the mix.

"It's not working," Andromeda said at last, "I need more blood-replenishing potion!"

"We're all out!" came Pansy's yell from the kitchen.

And then there was another flood of noise as some of the D.A. members offered to get some potions from the other bases. Two of them apparated off, just as Seamus Finnigan raced over with a bottle of Dittany. "Does this help?"

"No, that's for scarring," Neville interjected, "it wouldn't work!"

"Harry, just think!" Ginny turned to her boyfriend, who looked completely distressed, "you've seen how Snape healed him the previous time, so try to remember!"

"I would if I could! But I tried it earlier and it didn't work. I can't even remember the incantation for it – vul-something!"

"That is bloody helpful," Theo fired back, shooting Harry a look of aggravation.

Cho Chang pushed through the group with a book in her hands. "There's no healing spell here that starts with a V."

And then something just clicked in Hermione's mind. Yes, there was a healing spell for this, and she had heard it loud and clear with her own ears before, because the healing spell was used on her.

"I know how to heal him," Hermoine said abruptly, prompting everyone to look at her. And then there was a babble of voices, several people offering their wands to her all at once, such an overwhelming chorus of noise. Her heart pounded with the influx of attention, and she felt herself shaking. Before she could spiral into another panic attack, she clapped her hand over her ears. "I want everyone out!"

"But Hermione – "

"I don't think – "

"No, wait – "

"Out!" She repeated, her voice calm amidst the chaos. "Now, every single one of you, please. Only Andromeda stays behind – and Grus, stay here with Teddy. But the rest of you, please!" She prodded Theo with her wand. The group trickled out of the front door into the porch, but Hermione stopped one of them. "Harry, you can stay."

Harry returned to her side. "Hermione, I'm so sorry – "

"Vulnera Sanentur," she stated quietly, looking up at him. "Is that the spell?"

His eyes widened. "It sounds familiar – "

"Good enough." She knelt down next to Andromeda, holding her wand over Draco's wounds, staring at his motionless body and willing herself not to cry. Healing magic had always been calming for her, and it calmed her now, just the thought of healing Draco. She took a deep breath. "Vulnera Sanentur."

To her greatest relief, the blood immediately stopped flowing from the slash wounds, but she held up a hand to stop Andromeda as the older witch started to fuss over Draco. Quietly, she repeated the spell two more times, watching as the deep gashes sealed themselves up and the remnant blood stains vanished from his pale skin.

Finally, she pulled back and nodded at Andromeda. "He's alright now."

"Thank you, Hermione." Andromeda swept away the tears on her cheeks and hugged the younger witch, before heading into the kitchen to create a new batch of potions.

"He's going to be alright, Hermione," Harry's voice was soft as he wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder. "He's going to be fine."

Hermione didn't answer him. She stared at Draco's unconscious figure instead, her fingers reaching up to lock between his motionless once. Her eyes were tearless but her heart felt like it was cracking at the seams, with the fissures ripping apart as the brevity of what had happened to him dawned on her.

It almost felt like someone had used Sectumsempra on her own heart.

And Merlin, it hurt.

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"Hermione?"

The light from Andromeda's wand lit the room. Hermione climbed to her feet, pushing the stool back as she looked at the older witch standing by the doorway.

"Hermione, have you been sitting there all night?" She nodded and Andromeda shook her head. "You should get some rest. It's not good for you to keep worrying like that."

"I can't help it," Hermione murmured, gazing at Draco. "He hasn't woken up. He hasn't even moved. The only way I know he's alive is from his breathing, but even then, it's weak."

Andromeda sat down on the chair with a heavy sigh. "He's going to be fine, Hermione – "

"You don't know that," Hermione shook her head. "That's just what people say during a war. You're going to be fine. You're going to be safe. It's all going to be okay. They're all lies," she looked up, her gaze meeting Andromeda's squarely, "aren't they?"

She smiled gently. "I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be optimistic. I thought you had a little beacon of hope that never went out."

"That's the person I used to be. I've been through the worst of the war where all hope is extinguished and the only thing left is basic survival instincts. I'm not fighting a war, 'Dromeda, I'm surviving it. And he – " Hermione's voice broke off, and she swallowed painfully, " – he's the reason I'm still surviving."

Andromeda was silent for a long time, and then her arms slowly came around Hermione. "You know he's my only family left too, right?" The older witch said softly. "There's Teddy, but Teddy's too young to even know what family means. And, of course, there's that wretched sister of mine who's so far gone I can't even call her a sister anymore. So there's just Draco, and I was just as frightened as you were earlier today."

"I know." Hermione hugged Andromeda. "You have me too, by the way."

"I'm glad."

The two sat in silence for a long while. Then Andromeda left the room, with a gentle reminder to get some sleep, shutting the door behind her.

Hermione didn't move for several minutes. But then, with painstaking slowness, she got into bed, tucking herself in the small space next to him. Reaching for his limp hand, she slid her fingers through his, resting her cheek gently his shoulder. And then her eyes were no longer dry as tears seeped past her eyelids and stained his shirt.

She could practically hear his voice in her head, his tone of dry amusement as he'd say, "Granger, you'd better bloody Scourgify this shirt once you're done snivelling into it." Through her tears, she almost smiled at the thought of that, even as the fissures of her heart widened ever so painfully.

"Draco, are you awake?" She whispered, searching his pale face for any signs of movement, if he'd somehow managed to hear her in his deep stupor – a flutter of his eyelids, perhaps, or a flush in his cheeks. But there was none. She sighed. "Of course not."

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Draco awoke with a stinging soreness in his chest and an uncomfortable dryness in his throat. He blinked, trying to recall what had happened to him. After a few seconds, it all came back in flashes. Fighting in the square. Coming face to face with that bloody Rowle on the street. Taking a Sectumsempra for saint Potter.

And Merlin, it wasn't fucking worth it. He felt like absolute shit.

Glancing down, he saw Hermione sleeping beside him, her tear-stained face taut with worry and an unconscious frown etched between her eyebrows. His fingers itched to smooth the frown away, but a more rational part of him knew that she probably hadn't gotten much sleep in the past few hours and he'd just wake her if he did that.

Instead, he shifted, pressing his lips briefly to the crown of her head before shutting his eyes again. The uninterrupted peace wasn't for long. Moments later, there came a soft creak as the door opened slowly and a small boy popped his head in.

Teddy stared at him for a moment, his eyes wide and frightened, but then his face lit up. Draco hastily pressed a finger to his lip and Teddy nodded vigorously. "Draco!" He whisper-yelled. "You awake?"

Draco silently summoned his wand over from the bedside table, casting a wordless Muffliato on Hermione's sleeping figure before beckoning Teddy over. The small boy scampered over, stepping up on the stool by the bed to get a better look at Draco.

"Hey, kid," Draco grinned, reaching out to grasp Teddy by the elbow firmly to steady him. "Don't wake Hermione, okay?"

"'Mione sick too?"

"No, just tired. Hand me that glass of water, Teddy."

Eagerly, with a fervent sort concentration only seen in a young child, Teddy grabbed the glass of water from the bedside table and gave it to Draco. Draco drank without hesitation, his parched throat easing up on the discomfort bit by bit.

"Draco sick?" Teddy asked anxiously, when Draco handed him the empty glass. "Gramma says I can't play with Draco."

"No, we can play. Just not outside, alright?"

"Okay!" The boy stood with his hands braced on the side of the bed, staring expectantly at Draco over Hermione's wild mop of curls.

Draco wracked his brains for a bit, before an idea suddenly struck him. He reached over, tapping the tip of his wand to Teddy's shirt. Instantly, Teddy's shirt turned a bright shade of orange and the young boy laughed in fascination. "Now what colour's your hair, Teddy?"

He frowned, eyes looking up as he tried to catch a glimpse of his hair. "I dunno."

Draco tapped his wand to the empty glass in Teddy's hands, swiftly transfiguring it into a mirror and bringing it up so that Teddy could see his own reflection. "Brown. Your hair's brown. Now try turning it to orange. Same colour as your shirt."

Teddy concentrated, staring hard at the mirror. The kid had done it several times before, even if it was unknowingly. Draco had seen Teddy sporting the same shade of white blonde that matched his own exactly, and the same mop of curls that was equally as unruly as Hermione's were. But more often than not, Teddy's hair was brown and straight like Andromeda's, which made sense because the two were almost inseparable.

So when Teddy's hair now turned a slow orange, Draco wasn't surprised. "I did, I did!" Teddy whispered excitedly.

Draco grinned. "Good job. Now try this."

Teddy's shirt turned a dark shade of green when Draco pointed his wand to it, and the boy promptly screwed up his features in blatant concentration as he stared into the mirror. He'd just successfully changed his hair colour when the door opened and Andromeda stepped in.

She blinked in evident surprise at Draco, who grinned lazily back at her, and then at her grandson. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Oh, sweet Merlin." She shook her head, quickly heading towards them. "Draco, I'm really glad you're awake now, but honestly, your Slytherin pride is taking itself to ridiculous, gravity-defying heights."

"Come on, 'Dromeda, look at him and tell me he doesn't look good in green."

"Draco, everyone and everything looks best in green to you. Don't think I haven't noticed the fact that you and Theo have been secretly changing all the bath towels and pillow-cases to green. You even turned the walls of my living room green!"

Draco simply smirked. Perhaps he and Theo weren't as surreptitious as they thought they were. Well, the green walls looked bloody fantastic with the green cushions in the living room anyway.

"Gramma, look at me!" Teddy chirped excitedly, pointing to his hair and waving the mirror at her. "I'm a Sl-Slythe-in!"

"So young, so wise," Draco said, with an evidently pleased expression on his face. "Potter-the-godfather, on the other hand, will probably have a heart attack."

"He will once he sees Teddy's hair. So will everyone else in the vicinity. And Grus will try to hang himself thinking that he wrecked Teddy." Andromeda shot him a flat look. "Change it back, please."

"Fine." Draco huffed, reaching over to take the mirror away from the boy. "Hey, Teddy, see this?" He pointed to his own head, picking a lock of his own blond hair between his fingertips. The boy nodded. "Change your hair. We can match."

Teddy was clearly delighted by the idea and promptly began to focus on Draco's hair, changing his own to the same shade. "We match now?"

"Like a pair of heart-stopping gorgeous twins."

Andromeda looked torn between amusement and annoyance, and she rolled her eyes. "Now this is really going to give Harry a heart attack." Picking Teddy up, she leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Draco's forehead. "Good to have you back," she said softly, sounding rather choked up now. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

"I'll try not to, 'Dromeda." Draco returned, quieter now, watching as Andromeda left the room with Teddy. The door shut with a click and he silently removed the muffling charm on Hermione before leaning over to set his wand down on the table.

But it rolled off the table, falling onto the ground with a sharp clatter, and Draco swore under his breath when Hermione began to stir. And then she was slowly pushing herself up, running a haphazard hand through her stubborn curls as she gazed down at him. He felt his heart clench, not because of the pain in his chest, but because she looked so damned beautiful, even with the tear-stained cheeks and dark circles under her eyes.

"Morning, Granger."

She blinked.

"Granger?"

She blinked again.

"No, this isn't a hallucination. You can kiss me if you want to find out."

The blank expression on her face immediately crumpled into one of utter relief and she passed her hands tentatively across his chest, looking at him with nothing but worry in her eyes. "Are you alright? Does it still hurt?"

"Been better," he replied honestly, reaching up to slide his palm up her cheek. He drew her down slowly, staring at her with the kind of focus that committed every inch of her beautiful features to memory – the tremble of her full lips, the fresh streak of tears racing down her freckled cheeks and the worried crease on her forehead.

She was leaning down to kiss him before he could, and he was more than willing to let her take the reigns on this one. She met him at the perfect angle, lips gentle but fervent on his, like she was trying to prove to herself that he was real. He shut his eyes, breathed her in, resisting the urge to groan when she pulled back reluctantly.

"I was so scared," she whispered, sounding every bit as vulnerable and broken as when he first found her so many months ago. "I thought I'd lost you – "

He cut her off by leaning up, capturing her lips with his with a certain kind of determination to prove to her that he was real. No tongue, no teeth, just lips on lips, but it was a searing, desperate, almost bruising kind of kiss that dragged the oxygen from his lungs, but who needed oxygen when there was her, just her, and that alone was enough to suffice?

And when he finally let up, he didn't let her go far, instead keeping her firmly in place so that his lips were still brushing hers when he spoke.

"Never, Granger."

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The house was still quiet when Draco and Hermione headed downstairs. It was only half-past seven, but it was apparent that everyone else was asleep; apart from Andromeda, who was in the kitchen, and Grus and Teddy, who were outside in the garden.

Andromeda greeted them brightly when they entered the kitchen, and they gave her a full account of the previous day's events over breakfast. She didn't look surprised to hear that Draco's Mark happened to be a tracker. "Well, it makes perfect sense," she said calmly. "The Mark reeks of Dark Magic."

"Yes, but I'm a little confused," Hermione interjected, with a puzzled frown. "Why doesn't You-Know-Who just track Draco down here?"

"It might have something to do with the charms on this house. Shacklebolt's laid up some basic charms, but I have made a couple of my own, and got Grus to perform some magic for added protection. House-elves have a different brand of magic altogether, as you know, and I believe it can be more powerful than ours are."

"So while I'm here, the Dark Lord can't track me down?" Draco reaffirmed, looking at Andromeda for clarification. She nodded, and a faint shade of relief flickered in his normally indifferent expression.

Hermione, on the other hand, was more than glad to know that Draco would be safe here. "House-elves are clever," she mused, "honestly, I think they should be given wands and treated like normal human beings – "

"Oh, this is S.P.E.W. all over again!" Came a familiar voice behind them. Luna breezed into the kitchen wearing a peculiar dress that seemed like it had been sewn together using different pieces of fabric. She grinned brightly at Draco, looking thoroughly pleased to see him awake now, and poured herself a mug of tea. "Hello, Draco, it's lovely to see that pink flush of health on your cheeks again – "

"Pink what of what on my fucking what?"

Hermione blinked, looking entirely confused. "And what in Merlin's name is SPEW?"

"It's S.P.E.W.," Luna corrected. "Short for The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, which campaigns for the rights of house-elves to be treated better and not like servants. You were the one who started it. Made a lot of badges and had an admission fee of two Sickles. But it didn't go very well, because a lot of people didn't want to join, and a lot of the elves actually liked serving their masters."

"Oh, yes, of course," Hermione said thoughtfully. "That makes sense. It would be an insult to the elves to undermine something they actually like doing."