Azael's Chains

Ends

For several long minutes Hermione clung to the young man. It was a lot like coming home at first, though it was a home one had seen burned to the ground, a blackened match in one's own hand. Then creeping threads of other emotions wove into her until they trapped her in them, so that she clung to him to hold herself in reality rather than out of affection or joy.

"Merlin, Hermione, I thought I'd never see you again." His corded arms tightened around her until her chest felt constricted, her mouth smothered, and she pushed at him.

"You were worried?" Her hands fisted his jacket, thudding against his chest with all the might Hermione could gather in her cramped space. "Ronald, I thought-- they-- you were dead!"

Ron's broad hands rubbed her sides. "I'm so sorry, Hermione. So, so sorry. We couldn't let you know, had to keep as much information from them as we could. When Neville came he was so adamant that it caused the same fights all over again."

Hermione tugged from his chest, his fingers interweaving to hold her in his arms. "Fights to tell me you were alive?"

"Well, those too." His sky blue eyes were too bright, like the sun was creeping into them and threatening to overwhelm her vision. "But we mostly fought about rescuing you."

The dread building in the back of her mind sank into the darkness to settle in her stomach. "I'm sure you were happy to have an ally though." He half-smiled at her. "You-- you kept fighting for me." It wasn't a question necessarily, but his eyes gave away the answer.

"I never gave up on you, that I'd see you again. And Snape kept us informed, of course."

Snape had told them about her situation. Oh, God. She was going to be sick. "You knew what was happening to me?"

"I mean," he hedged, "between him and Neville, and Malfoy later, we got the basics. But we didn't get details or anything, y'know? I don't think I'd... well. We knew he wouldn't kill you or starve you. I didn't want to, did all I could..."

Hermione's palm flattened on him, shoving away to stare incredulously up into the familiar freckled visage. "Oh. My God. You knew." His fingers finally parted to let her slip through, hands rising in supplication as he opened his mouth to explain. "You knew. You knew what he was doing to me and you left me there. No! No, Ronald Weasley. I don't want to hear your excuses for why you didn't fight, why you went along and accepted that I would be martyred. For half a year. I would never-- Harry would never leave you there. He never would have left me there. Christ Almighty. I know why I was left. Why it was tactical. But you left me. You. Not them. You."

She turned toward the wall, hands covering her face before she exploded in a wreckage of pain and anger and grief.

"Hermione."

A hesitant touch slid onto her shoulder and she shrugged it off. "Get away from me."

His presence lingered there, mouth opening and closing as he struggled to come up with the words that would bring her back to him.

"Give her some space, Weasley. Come on, I'll see to your leg." Draco pulled the broader boy away and Hermione darted to the toilet, heaving acid into the porcelain bowl. It ate at her throat, deafening the screams she wanted to hurl through the mirror and herself.

It was late when Hermione finished in the infirmary and headed to the kitchens. She expected to find Draco in the dining room, stuffing down food of his own after the tiring day.

Instead raised voices and stuttering chair legs greeted her ears. Members of the resistance were gathered around the long table. Snape, Lucius Malfoy and his son, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Professor McGonagall, Ron and Mr. Weasley and Bill, Neville--