Finally her tears dry up, and with a last shuddering breath, her wretched sobbing comes to a hitching close. She can hear the reverberation of Malfoy's heart beating against her cheek and ear, and his fingers rub little circles on her upper arm through the tee shirt of his that she wears. The position suddenly seems horribly, horrendously intimate, and awkward beyond belief. Hermione gulps down a lungful of air and jerks away from him – his arm eases away from her immediately, and they are left sitting side by side, thighs and knees nudging together on the bed. She lifts eyes that feel swollen and tender to his, and his face is still and solemn, his gaze digging into hers with an intensity that swiftly melts away to a cool, detached kind of concern. The air is thick, and Hermione feels hollowed out and insubstantial in it, like an empty seedpod. Tears gone, she is an exhausted, worn husk, and his eyes are too clear and too steady on hers. She drops her gaze.