The manor is hauntingly silent when they appear at the front doorstep. With the dark sky as a backdrop, it seems more frightening than it ever had in the past. Hermione suppresses a shiver and does her best to keep down the memories fighting to make themselves known in her head.

Never in her lifetime had she imagined she would return her, but her curiosity had driven her to do it. She fully intends to get answers from Draco, who she still can't quite believe is alive, and if that means entering the manor, then she can bury her fear for a little while.

Even still, when Draco pushes open the front door, Hermione can't help but to shrink back. The darkness inside is worse than outside and a perpetual chill seems to be seeping out of the home, if one could even call it a home. To her, it seems more like a torture chamber, and she hasn't even gone inside.

Draco looks back to her, waiting until she meets his eyes. "There is nothing left here that can hurt anyone," he murmurs, knowing exactly what she needs to hear. She scoffs and crosses her arms. Cracking a grin, he adds, "unless you count the paintings of my ancestors. They can be pretty verbally ruthless, but all you have to do is threaten to toss them into the cellar and they'll go quiet."

It startles a laugh from her and the tension dissipates. "I'm not afraid," she sniffs, keeping up appearances. "It's just a house."

"Alright miss I'm-not-afraid-of-anything, you can go ahead of me." He gestures towards the door.

Hermione glances inside and swallows. Taking a deep breath, she steps over the threshold. With eyes squeezed tightly shut, she waits for any number of curses to attack her. When none come, she opens her eyes and peers around. Now that she's inside, it doesn't appear nearly as dark and her eyes are slowly adjusting. Nothing is visible that could possibly cause her any harm.

She moves farther into the front room, searching out a light source while keeping half her focus on watching for danger. Eventually she finds an candle on a small table against the far wall and lights it with her wand. The shadows recede to the far edges of the room, dancing in the light as Hermione continues her way around the room.

It feels vast, with a high ceiling and an unlit chandelier hanging overhead. There are two ornate staircases, one leading to the left and one to the right. On the left wall is a large, open doorway that leads into another room. At the right is a long corridor that leads farther into the manor. The walls, unlike how they had been in the past, now seem a light cream color, bordering on white. In the warm glow of the candlelight, the place doesn't seem as awful. It's almost pleasant, truthfully.

Nodding her approval, Hermione turns around and finds Draco watching her.

"Finished with your observations of my front room?" He asks as he moves closer to her.

Shifting to the candle holder to her other hand, she smirks up at him. "It's not as horrid as I remember. Then again, I never really had the privilege of viewing your entire home. My viewing pleasures were limited the last time and mostly tainted with dark magic." She isn't intending it to be a jab at him, but Draco flinches nonetheless.

"Hermione, I-" he starts what she supposes would have been an apology, but she interrupts before he can finish.

"What's done is done. It's in the past, and I don't blame you," she reassures. "The person who did it is gone. Let's just discuss what we came to discuss, alright?" Her words a clipped and she wants the topic to change quick.

Draco eyes her for a moment, brow furrowed. He tilts his head, considering. "Something's wrong," he says after a while. "What happened while you were gone?"

"Why do you assume something's wrong?" She turns her head away, looking around the room again. "I told you, I'd share my story. But I want to hear yours, too."

"You're being short, more so than you usually are with me. And don't think I haven't noticed the way that you jerk with everyone noise that's too loud," he points out. Hermione winces. She'd been praying that would have gone unnoticed. "You've always been tense, everyone has been since the war, but this is worse than it used to be. Something's happened, hasn't it?"

Clearing her throat, Hermione shrugs. "I said I'd explain everything. We'll get there."

He nods. "Fine, let's go through there and talk. We'll be more comfortable." He points towards the doorway at the left.

Hermione heads toward it as Draco closes the front door. "Is there a fire place in there? I don't really want to spend the night straining my eyes to see with the little bit of light, and I'm still a bit chilled from being out."

"Should be right across the room from you," he answers, coming up behind her.

Used to old habits, Hermione pulls out her wand and lights the wood. It only occurs to her after that Draco very well could have done it himself. He doesn't seem to mind, though, because he's already sitting down on the sofa in front of the fire. Shrugging to herself, she sits down in the chair diagonal to the sofa. She puts out the candle.

"Would you prefer to go first, or me?" He's lounged back, keeping carefully at ease, but Hermione can see his discomfort the same way she knows her own unease. Eyes flicking around, never sitting quite still enough, fingers tapping out an unsteady beat against the cushions or his thigh. It helps, knowing she isn't the only one.

"You first," she answers. "I'm very interested in knowing how you're still alive when the entire world believes you're six feet underground."

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Fair enough, but they do believe the same thing about you," he reminds.

Hermione grins but doesn't offer to share her story first. She waits until he thinks through what he'll say. It's a long silence, one that she fills with watching her surroundings, still unsure of the manor.

He coughs to get her attention. "As you know I was hit with sectumsempra, and a nasty one, given the fool who cast it." Both of them scowl at the mere mention of Ronald. "To make a long story short, I was dead temporarily, then resurrected. After that, I fell into a coma for a while and then was assumed dead again, but I was still very much alive this time. Then I actually woke up, and that's when all of this was told to me."

Hermione nods along, lips pursed as she works her way through understanding that explanation. "So, you did actually die?"

"Briefly," he says again. "I assume that's when you left, based on what I've been told."

"Probably," Hermione replies faintly. She stares somewhere off into middle distance, recalling that day in the hospital. There had been so much blood, on her and the floor. It'd taken her weeks to scrub it from her clothes, and even longer to chase the smell from her nose. Shaking her head, she asks, "why did the papers say that you didn't survive, then?"

"Mother didn't want anyone to bother me while I healed. She feared any press coverage would be too much after I went through such an ordeal." Draco rolls his eyes here, but there is a fond smile on his lips. "The minister of Magic agreed as well, thinking it the best solution at the time. So they had the papers print about my death, hoping it might inspire people to look out for Weasley and turn him in. I was going to come out eventually and announce that I'm alive, but I wanted to wait a while longer and-" he stops here, shifting suddenly in his seat. "I just didn't want to be bothered," he finishes quickly, not quite meeting her eyes.

She doesn't pursue why Draco looks so flushed. "Why was the minister there?"

Draco lets out a breath. "He came to inform me that my punishment was lifted early because of your disappearance. After the attack, the Wizengamot had apparently decided I'd been punished enough, so they didn't bother finding me someone else to be stuck with." His nose wrinkles at the idea and Hermione lets out a quiet chuckle.

"So I understand why the minister knows, but is there anyone else who is aware you're alive?" She leans forward a bit in her seat, bracing her elbows on her knees. "It would be rather lonely having everyone believe you're dead."

"You'd know as well as I do," he says. Hermione colors and ducks her head. "But yes, a few close friends of mine know. Blaise, who I'm sure you know through Luna. Pansy, too, and Theo Nott. Other than that, no one, not even their significant others, know about me." He stops and thinks over everything he has said. Deeming his story sufficiently told, he says, "what's your story? Where did you dearest Hermione disappear to that made everyone believe she had also passed away?" Draco does his best to sound strictly curious and not let any other emotion slip into his voice.

"I'm afraid mine is not nearly as good as yours. No purposefully exaggerated deaths or the lifting of a year-long punishment, at least," she replies, looking back up at him.

He pauses a moment to make sure no desperation floods into his answer. "I still want to know."

Hermione's shoulders hunch a bit and she curls in on herself a bit. She takes a slow breath, letting it fill her and leave no room for nerves. When she speaks, her voice is so quiet that Draco can hardly hear. "Watching you die, I grew tremendously enraged. I don't know if it was grief, or shock...all I knew was that I wanted to make him pay for killing you and leaving me to deal with the repercussions." She stops, turns her gaze to the fire. The flames reflect in her glassy eyes. "Finding him was easy, and trapping him even easier. But he managed to escape and petrify me, leaving me for the aurors to discover."

Her fists clench tight in her lap. "The spell wore off before they got there and I just-I couldn't stay anymore, so I left. I didn't tell anyone, not even my friends, and I went out to find Ronald." Draco watches as her entire body goes rigid. He so wants to reach out for her, but stopping her now doesn't seem like the best option. He stays still and does not speak. "Months chasing him, facing every new country with gritted teeth and a...a hunger to make him suffer like he was making me." He jerks when a cold, humorless laugh bursts from her lips. "I must have gone mad, all that searching and finding nothing. It was like trying to find horcruxs again." She shakes her head. "That's why I finally came back. I couldn't do it anymore, and I missed my friends. I'd done my grieving and my rage is near gone now." Hermione finishes by leaning back in her seat, forcing her body to relax. "Today is my first day back in London. I was going to visit Harry and Ginny in the morning, but then I ran into you and, well, you know the rest."

Draco takes a moment, just as she had, to let this barrage of information settle in his head. Then, he says, "how much of the story are you leaving out?"

Hermione flinches, and he knows he's right. "I don't know what you mean," she insists anyway.

"Don't lie," he commands, narrowing his eyes. "You're not telling me everything. What else is there?"

She turns a glare on him and he meets it steadily. She cracks first. "Fine," Hermione sighs, slumping in her seat. "You're right. I didn't tell everything. Everything I said was true, but I just didn't mention the other reason I left."

Softly, he inquires, "what was it, Hermione?"

Hermione rubs her face, groaning tiredly. "Guilt," she whispers. "I ran because I was guilty and I couldn't face anyone knowing that I was partially responsible for your death." Draco's eyes blow wide. "I changed my appearance, told no one what I had planned, and I ran away. I'm a bloody coward and I know it, but I just couldn't handle your death on my own."

Draco goes completely still, processing her words slowly.

She feels guilty? For what reason? Because she couldn't stop the spell? There was no way to stop it, not even she could cast a shield charm that fast. There is no reason for her to feel guilty. The situation had been far out of her hands. Weasley is the one who should be suffering from a guilty conscious, not Draco's witch. And yet here she is, looking close to breaking apart because of the condemning thoughts that have been running through her head for four months.

With a burst of motivation, he jumps from the sofa and moves swiftly to Hermione. Uncaring of how she might interpret it, he lifts her up with only a small struggle-he's spent far too much time doing his own grieving and has let his strength deplete greatly-and turns so that he's seated in the chair with her balanced in his lap. Hermione squeaks in surprise but doesn't pull away.

"Hermione," he sighs, pressing her close to his chest. She doesn't protest, only lays her head on his shoulder and listens in silence. "You may be the brightest witch I've ever met, but you're daft if you think you're to blame for what Weasley did to me." She lifts her eyes and meets his gaze. Draco is stunned by how riddled with guilt her cinnamon orbs are, even now that she knows he is alive.

"But it is my fault," she argues weakly. "I should have been able to stop him, but I was too slow."

Draco feels tears wet the front of his shirt but he can't find the will to care. He tuts quietly at her words. "Not even Merlin himself could have reacted fast enough. No matter how skilled you are, how can you be expected to stop it if he couldn't?" She has no response. "Do you see now? You aren't at fault for anything that happened that day. Besides, I'm completely alright now. You can relax and forget all about it." When he finishes, Hermione looks up to him with something very much like appreciation glimmering in her watering eyes.

"Thank you," she murmurs, laying her head back down on his shoulder.

Draco looks down at her with a small smile, pleased to see that the tension she has had all evening is finally bleeding away. She's gone loose-limbed and pliant on him and, some time later, he hears quiet snores falling from her lips.

Biting back a laugh, he contemplates carrying her to one of the numerous guest rooms in the manor. If he did, he runs the risk of her waking up. Or worse, she'll sleep the night through and wake in fear of the unknown surroundings. Hermione has suffered enough, and he can't bear to be apart from her even for the night when he only just got her back.

His only option is staying here. Sighing, Draco tries to get as comfortable in the chair as he can, thankful that his mother adored over-sized and comfortable furniture for the visiting rooms. Letting his own eyes drift closed, Draco places his head atop hers. He doesn't intend to sleep, but it's been so long since he's had a full nights rest and his body craves it. He ends up falling asleep to the sound of the crackling fire and Hermione's soft murmurs in his ear. It's the best sleep he's had in ages.