Apocalypse and You | Dramione

December 10th, 2002.

10th December, 2002.

The sound of the alarm filled the cold walls.

This meant it was morning. This meant it was time to live out another bleak day.

Hermione peeled back her eyelids. Her body was crumbled into the small bathtub she hides in.

It was even more crumbled now there were two bodies to fill it.

Draco woke up slowly too, his hand reaching out to grasp Hermione's arm. He had done this every day for the past month, to check Hermione was still there, to check she had not been taken. It was comforting, for the most part.

Having someone, having Draco.

Draco was like a star, Hermione thought.

Even in all this darkness and emptiness, Draco still found a way to shine. He found a way to laugh, a way to run around the house with a smile on his face, a way to brighten up Hermione's life.

You love him, Hermione, he's a friend, you love him as a friend.

But Draco was damaged. His soul was broken. Some days he refused to even look her in the eye. Some days he sat by himself in the kitchen and stared at the wall, his fingers tracing over the scars on his skin.

He was toxic like venom. Yet beautiful like rain.

She knew many things have happened to him in the past to make him so torn. Yet she appreciated his appraisal, his effort. Even if she knew it was breaking him inside. She knew he was trying to her. For positivity. For hope.

"Good morning" Hermione hummed, voice low and croaky as she struggled to peel herself from the cold of the tub and stretched to sit up. Draco was curled into a ball, half on her lap.

A small scream echoed from outside and Hermione made the mistake of poking an eye through her broken curtains, a girl running is what she saw, before she disappeared behind a wall.

Hermione hadn't seen another body that wasn't Draco's in weeks. It felt strange.

"I'm hungry."" Draco replied after a minute, he used Hermione's thigh to pull his way up into a sitting position.

Relishing in the morning drowsiness, his eyes were swollen. The left side of his face was half aglow by the crack of light seeping through the curtain, falling across his eye. It sparkled like a shell in an ocean. Perplexingly beautiful. Rare.

Hermione admired his looks. Before the apocalypse, she could not remember what her type in man, or woman, had been. Relationships had felt like a blank slate, like that part of her brain was wiped clean. She didn't know if Draco would ever be the type of man she admired.

You admire him, Hermione.

"We have some fruits leftover, from last week," Hermione told him, crawling from the small space and letting her sock-clad feet land on the cold ground. "Do you want me to bring you some?"

Draco shook his head, yet instead followed to walk to the kitchen with her.

Hermione noticed his arm had hooked around her own. She knew she liked that. Human contact. It was a rarity before Draco arrived. It was still somewhat a rarity now, Draco knew there were boundaries, but he broke them sometimes, like right now.

Hermione liked that. When he broke the boundaries. When he broke the unwritten rules. She knew she hadn't liked to break rules before now.

"I miss chicken." Draco's voice was subtle. His body found its way to the small armchair that sat in the room. He curled into it, face squashing against the material. "I miss chicken soup, do you remember that?"