Manacled by Senlinyu

Chapter 43: Flashback 18

September 2002

When Hermione returned to the shack the following week, there was no scroll on the table.

There was also no table and no chairs. The little bit of furniture that had been there before was gone.

Her stomach dropped, and she felt the doorknob rattle in her hand.

She kept staring, willing a scroll to appear. She looked around the rest of the room. Perhaps she'd overlooked something.

The furniture was gone.

She walked slowly into the room and glanced around.

Maybe he was just busy. Maybe he'd bring it in the evening, she thought nervously.

But the furniture was gone.

Maybe he'd been injured or killed. It hadn't even occurred to her until just then; he might die and she wouldn't even know. He'd just disappear, and she'd never see him again.

Surely Severus would let her know if Draco died...

Besides, the furniture was gone.

She stood in the middle of the room, wondering what to do.

Surely he wouldn't end his arrangement with the Order just because she'd bled on his second-hand furniture. He'd had his back carved into ribbons to be a spy. Trailing blood into his safehouse could not possibly be his limit.

Perhaps he'd just burned the furniture.

She turned around one last time and then started for the door. She'd come back in the evening. If there was nothing by the next week, then she'd let herself panic. She wasn't going to let herself panic yet. There might be some other explanation.

She was halfway out the door when she heard a pop. She turned and found Malfoy standing in the center of the room.

She stared at him, wide-eyed and uncertain. He looked her up and down, as though he expected her to be injured again.

"We should resume training," he said after a moment.

Hermione said nothing. She felt torn between a desire to laugh or cry. The corner of her mouth twitched, and she tried to swallow past a hard lump in her throat. Her hand shook faintly as she fought to hold in all the furious things she wanted to say.

I've been here every week. You're the one who stopped coming. I didn't even want to drink that night. You made me stay and then punished me for it. Why do you even care? Why are you here? Why are you spying for us? Why can't you make sense so I can stop wondering if you're redeemable or not? I was here. I was here and you were the one who never came back.

She didn't say anything. She just stood in the doorway.

She wanted to just turn and leave. To go and try to make sense of why she cared.

She cared. She felt betrayed.

He'd given her dire warnings, ordered her to work out, practice dueling, and be careful. He'd made her paranoid and stressed every time she ventured out to forage for potion ingredients until she could hardly breathe when she was out; until she couldn't even eat the night before because the food tasted like ash, and her stomach knotted so tightly with anxiety that she couldn't force it down.

He'd made her realise how much she didn't want to die.

She didn't want to die.

He'd told her he'd train her, ridiculed her for not being ruthless enough, and then—abandoned her.