Chapter 2
The weight of him threatened to pull her under.
Hermione struggled as she dragged Draco’s unconscious form across the sand, her breath coming in short, uneven bursts. He was heavier than he looked, dead weight in her arms. The wet fabric of his clothes clung to his skin, slick and freezing. The tide had already begun its retreat, as if spitting him out, as if the ocean itself had tried to drown him and failed.
She should have left him there.
A single thought, sharp and unrelenting.
She could have walked away, turned her back, let nature take its course. It would have been easier. Safer.
But she didn’t.
For a brief moment, she still pondered. Her version from a few years ago would never let such a thought cross her mind at all. She would have been ashamed to let herself be taken in by such inhumanity. She would be disgusted with herself... if that Hermione still existed.
War doesn't just take the life of the body, it also takes the life of the soul.
She gritted her teeth and pulled him forward, step by agonizing step, until the sand gave way to the solid footing of her cottage. With a final heave, she dropped him onto her small bed, her own body trembling from exertion.
For a long moment, she simply stood there, staring down at him. The world outside had shifted, the sky still golden but now muted, as if the sun had drawn its warmth away.
Draco Malfoy.
Of all the people in the world, why him?
Her fingers curled at her sides.
Her fingers.
Suddenly, she felt a heaviness in her hands that she hadn't felt when she woke up. Her breathing was ragged.
For months she had wondered how would it feel to touch another human being's skin again. To feel its warmth, to linger in its touch.
Not even in her darkest nightmares — and her nights were plagued by several — had she imagined this scenario. She never imagined that it would be Malfoy who would bring something so banal and human back into her life.
Although her fingers were still cold.
It wasn't in him that she would find warmth. And, Hermione knew, it wasn't just the icy water.
For minutes that seemed like lifetimes, she continued to watch her fingers, finding them strange. As if they didn't belong to her body. As if they acted on their own. Maybe they did.
Her mind reeled, grasping at possibilities, at reasons, at fates she did not believe in. There was no logic to this. No explanation. He should not be here. On this island. In her house. In her bedroom.
In her bed.
And yet, he was.
Swallowing hard, she moved closer, forcing herself to observe him clinically. His face was paler than she remembered, sharp angles carved by years she had not witnessed. Years had passed, and even in his sleep, Draco Malfoy still had this tormented expression.
But it was the dark veins crawling up his throat that sent ice splintering through her chest.
A curse.
Slowly, Hermione reached out, pressing careful fingers against his wrist. The skin was cold. His pulse was there, faint but steady. He was still alive. But for how much longer?
She leaned closer, eyes tracing the unnatural black tendrils spreading from beneath his collar. It wasn’t ink. Not a wound. It pulsed, shifting beneath his skin like something alive.
Hermione exhaled shakily.
This wasn’t a simple shipwreck. He hadn’t just washed up by chance.
Something had brought him here.
She moved quickly after that, driven by the same mechanical focus that had carried her through years of war and loss. She peeled away his soaked shirt, wincing at the deep bruises shadowing his ribs.
Hermione immediately looked away.
The little she saw was enough. The less the better.
Apart from not wanting to look at his naked torso, Hermione wasn't ready for human frailty. She didn't look at Malfoy's skin for more than a second. But, unfortunately, that second was powerful enough to unearth memories that still troubled her.
The fire crackled in the hearth, filling the room with flickering gold light. Hermione wrung out a cloth, wiping the salt and sand from his skin with quick, efficient motions.
It had been so long since she had tended to another person. Since she had let another presence disrupt the quiet solitude she had built for herself.
She should have left him there.
But she had not.
A low sound made her freeze.
At first, Hermione thought she had imagined it, the hush of the waves still echoing in her ears. Until it came again—soft, hoarse, unmistakably real.
Draco shifted, his head rolling slightly to the side. A strained breath parted his lips, barely a whisper.
"No…"
Hermione tensed. She watched, waiting, half-expecting him to slip back into unconsciousness. His eyelids fluttered, and suddenly, his fingers twitched against the blanket.
Then, as if pulled from the depths of some fevered dream, his eyes snapped open.
For a moment, he was unseeing. His chest rose sharply, breath catching as his gaze darted frantically around the room. Panic. Confusion. A lost man waking in an unfamiliar place.
Hermione remained still.
Draco’s lips parted, and in a voice rough as broken glass, he murmured, "You shouldn’t be here.”
Her pulse stuttered.
His eyes—grey and unfocused—seemed to look past her, as if seeing something else. Something far away. The fever glazed his expression, blurring the sharp intelligence that once lived behind his gaze.
"It’s coming," he breathed. "I didn’t mean to—"
Hermione’s stomach twisted.
Then, in the span of a heartbeat, something in his expression shifted. The fog cleared. His focus sharpened.
His gaze landed on her.
And the air changed.
A slow, quiet recognition bled into his features. A strangled laugh rasped from his throat, so faint she almost missed it.
Draco was surely about to say something, but his eyelids drooped, exhaustion dragging him under once more.
Hermione stepped outside, the cool night air pressing against her skin like a warning.
The sky stretched vast and endless above her, stars smudged across the darkness. The ocean whispered against the shore, rhythmic and unyielding.
And yet… something felt wrong.
She couldn’t name it. A shift in the air. A weight in her chest.
She turned back toward the cottage, staring at the darkened window, at the man who lay inside.
For the first time in ages, she was not alone, yes. But she was no longer sure if she was safe. Something had brought Draco Malfoy to her shores. And whatever it was, it was not done with him yet.
***
The presence in the next room unsettled her.
Draco Malfoy.
His name sat heavy on her tongue, unwelcome yet impossible to ignore. He was here, in her home, in her bed—alive, barely, but alive nonetheless. That should have been a comfort. Proof that she had done the right thing.
Then why did it feel like a mistake?
She turned onto her side, exhaling sharply. The sea was restless tonight, the waves colliding with the shore in steady, unrelenting bursts. The same tide that had spat Draco Malfoy onto her beach.
A coincidence?
She didn’t believe in those anymore.
A sudden sound snapped her upright. Low, strained. A whisper in the dark.
She was on her feet before she could think.
The air was thick with the scent of salt and dying embers as she moved quickly toward the other room. The fire had burned low, shadows stretching long against the walls.
Draco lay twisted in the blankets, his breath shallow, forehead damp with sweat. His fingers twitched, his lips parting around words too soft to hear. The veins at his throat had darkened.
Hermione’s stomach twisted.
She stepped closer, heart hammering against her ribs.
His breath hitched, his body giving a violent shudder.
“No,” he murmured. A raw whisper, barely a breath.
Hermione froze.
Draco’s head turned slightly, his expression contorted as if caught in a nightmare. His throat bobbed, his fingers clenched weakly at the sheets.
She had seen this before. The war had left them all haunted. Sleep was rarely an escape—only another battlefield.
His breathing grew more erratic, his body tensing against something unseen.
She hesitated only a moment before reaching for him.
“Malfoy,” she said firmly.
No response.
Hermione considered waking him. Shaking him free from whatever place his mind had taken him. But she didn’t.
Instead, she did what she did best.
She searched for answers.
The books were where she had left them, stacked haphazardly in the corner of the room, some still lined with the dust of disuse. She pulled the first one free, fingers brushing over worn pages, scanning for something, anything that could explain what was happening to him.
Curses. Dark magic.
She had studied them all.
But this… this was different.
A sickness. A poison. A mark.
The words blurred together. Nothing fit.
She was tired, not only from carrying a whole body from the water, but also from all the emotions that ran through her veins.
It was better to have a look in the morning.
Hermione stood there for a long time, watching the rise and fall of his chest, until coming back to her sofa.
Before falling asleep, her thoughts made her company throughout the night.
Draco Malfoy needed someone to take care of that curse. The next day, she would devote herself to her books, but deep down she already knew it would be meaningless.
Books wouldn’t help her. In her 23 years old, Hermione had never seen a curse like that.
He needed someone who was able to jump from theory to action. Someone who was able to cast a spell.
And Hermione wasn’t that person.
Not anymore.