Rarely, Malfoy has to leave again in the evening, with his face set cold and hard – that blank, expressionless mask shaping his features. He never tells her when he will be back; she supposes he doesn't know himself. But when he returns his footsteps are heavy and weighted with more than just physical exhaustion, and she curls beneath the bedcovers and for a brief moment is afraid he is someone else. 'It's just me,' Malfoy says to her half-covered form in a rasping voice, and she pretends that she was not afraid, but asleep. She keeps her eyes shut and stays half-hidden beneath the blankets, because she doesn't want to see the blood that she always fears covers him, whether it be his, or someone else's. She falls asleep on those nights to the sound of water running and the knowledge that whether Malfoy is furiously swearing or crying in broken little hitches, he is suffocating in the horror of what he has to do.