Disclaimer: I disclaim Harry Potter. :)

Summary: During seventh-year, Hermione reflects upon the morbidest yet most calming of things - death. Draco Malfoy stumbles upon her and, unknown to her, if affected by her words, which lead to him making some decisions later in the year. (HBP spoilers!)

A/N: This story, I have been told, is a little philosophical. I feel it is only right if I explain why this came to me - my junior, weiqi died a few days ago from a brain tumour. Now, I was not particularly acquainted with her, but somehow, her story touched me in more ways than one. I even cried during school when we were talking about death during an english lesson. Hence the inspiration for this story - a lot of my thoughts are put into Hermione's words.

Title is taken from Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden. Review please, or comment at my lj (see profile!). Or both, if you're really nice. :)

Dedicated to weiqi, the bravest of the brave, and the strongest of the strong. We all have something to learn from you.

Turn Leisurely From Disaster

Death. What a peculiar word. So common, yet so distant. So real, yet so intangible. So expected, yet so unexpected. So scary, yet so comforting.

Hermione knew about death and dying. To be fair, she knew practically everything. But she also knew Harry Potter. With him, she had met her fair share of scrapes and life-threatening situations. She had seen Harry come so close to death countless of times. And she had seen Cedric pass on.

It was that very incident that made Hermione begin to think about life – and, of course, death. A year later, she saw Sirius die, and she saw Harry grieve over it. But it hadn't struck her yet. It was strange, actually, because it wasn't the deaths of these people that she knew personally that hit a nerve in Hermione, but the death of someone she did not know at all – Hannah Abbott's mother.

Hardly anything was said about it. Hannah was taken out of school, and that was it. No one talked about her or her mother anymore, as if they were forgotten. Yet her family was mourning, grieving, and trying to cope with the loss and piece their lives back together, while everyone else went on with their daily activities. There was no time to empathise and no time to grieve, because life simply kept on going.

No one knew, but Hermione escaped to the library more than once to cry. It was she supposed was called the shared human experience. She was feeling for someone else, and that was making her cry. Staring out of the rain-splattered windows onto the grounds below, watching the students crowd round in laughter, Hermione barely even felt her tears rolling down her cheeks.

It was there that Draco Malfoy found her. He wasn't one to think about death – there were enough things on his plate as it was – but the word kept springing to his mind. Ever since the beginning of the school year, whenever he thought of death or dying, Draco began to feel twinges of discomfort and fear.

"All alone, Granger? Is Saint Potter dead?" he drawled upon seeing her bushy head turned towards the windows.

Hermione glanced back at him, her eyes watery and two streams of tears staining her cheeks. Her gaze turned frosty the moment she set her eyes upon him. "Don't even joke about that," she said frigidly, her voice quiet but dangerous.

As usual, Draco countered her hostility with more hostility. "Why not?" he asked rhetorically. "I want to see Potter dead – it's not as if I'd be mourning his death. I don't even know him that well."

Unexpectedly, his words triggered another stream of tears as Hermione got to her feet and fixed her icy gaze upon Draco. "You'll never know," she said, "You'll never know, not until it happens. Look at Hannah's mother! Look at what happened! That was completely unexpected!" she was beginning to yell in agitation. The topic had never been brought up – not by Harry, and not by anyone else. It had always been swept under the carpet and they skirted around the issue, pretending it didn't exist. Now everything was just flooding out.

Draco stood in complete silence. He understood, though he pretended not to. And he felt the same way, though he refused to admit it to himself. The news of Hannah's mother's death had been a bolt from the blue, and the thought that his father – Lucius Malfoy – could possibly even be one of those who had murdered Hannah's mother disgusted him. The though that he himself might, one day, become one of them, frightened him.

"Wait," said Hermione bitterly, pausing in contemplative thought. "It probably wasn't unexpected for you. You probably knew it was going to happen, anyway." She laughed in a hollow, echoing way that made her voice seem detached from her person.

"I didn't," replied Draco instantly. But his voice was not harsh and filled with indignation. Instead, it was muted and pensive. Draco somehow wished that he had a way of knowing when people were to die – then perhaps deaths wouldn't strike him as strongly. But that would, in its own way, scare him.

As if she had not heard him, Hermione continued, "You're probably a Death Eater, anyway. You've probably murdered too many people to name."

Draco felt anger rising in him. "I'm not!" he shouted, while his brain told him, "Not yet." He sank against the tall, towering shelves that stood on either side of him like two oppressive walls, sealing him into a small, enclosed chamber. "I'm not a murderer," he mumbled, eyes cloudy with apprehension. Soon, he would be a murderer.

Silenced by his outburst, Hermione watched as a single tear tumbled off the edge of her jaw and splashed into a small, insignificant spot on the front of her cloak. From the window behind her, sunlight spilled in, its brilliance shining on and ignoring the grief of the people. The light looked wholly out of place against the mellow mahogany bookshelves and the well-trodden floor.

"Do you fear death?" Hermione finally asked. It might seem strange, the two of them talking, because they were usually mortal enemies. But regardless of how little they wanted to admit it, they both had something in common – they were human. And they shared the common human experience, of which death was simply one component.

"Who doesn't?" replied Draco silently, forgetting everything he hated about the girl standing before him. All he remembered, in this state of extended consciousness, was that he needed to have this conversation with someone. Someone real and living – Moaning Myrtle was completely useless because all she did was, as her name suggested, moan.

Hermione felt her heart tighten suddenly. She hadn't the faintest idea why, except that it just did. "How could they do that?" Hermione whispered hoarsely as she tried – and failed – to keep her tears in check. "How could anyone willingly try to kill another human being?" The idea mystified her, consuming her like a flame of wonder, suffocating her with disgust and anger, overwhelming her with pity for the human race.

Her words wrenched painfully at Draco's heart as the memory of what he had to do flooded back to him. "Maybe they've been forced to," he explained feebly.

"Forced?" Disdain filled Hermione's voice. "No one can force you to do anything."

Her words were met by a silence that reverberated around the small space they were in, ringing loudly on their ears. Draco stared dumbly at the ground, fear taking over his conscious mind and making all his thoughts swim around in a huge whirlpool of confusion and chaos. He wanted to stand up to his father, Voldemort, and everything they had ordered him to do – but things just didn't work like that. It wasn't that easy. If he stood up to them, they would kill him.

Draco scoffed. The irony of it all – kill or be killed.

"No one can force you," repeated Hermione to herself, mumbling under her breath. "Death isn't as simple as it seems. It's not simple at all. It's scary. So scary." Her chest constricted again and Hermione gasped for air. The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly as she felt her body freeze up with fear, sinking backwards onto the window seat she had recently – though it seemed like a long time ago – vacated.

Looking up abruptly, Draco met Hermione's gaze. Both of them had wide-eyed stares full of fright – the fear of death, and the poignant stab when death actually happened. "I have to go," said Draco quickly and suddenly, stumbling backwards and careening through the shelves towards the entrance. Hermione watched as he disappeared from sight.

---

Draco ran down the corridors of Hogwarts, faintly aware of someone pulling him along and someone chasing behind them. He tried to focus on who was gripping onto him so tightly Draco was sure it was cutting of blood circulation to his hand, but Draco's mind protested. It was too busy fretting over what had just happened.

Nothing much was clear – Draco remembered Dumbledore's calm voice. "Draco, Draco, you are not a murderer." Everything after that had blurred away into nothingness as Draco answered with angry words. All the while, memories of what Hermione had said to him invaded his brain. "No one can force you to do anything." That particular sentence had stood out amongst all the others, and Draco let his wand drop by a millimetre.

Before someone shoved Draco roughly and a blinding green light filled the room. He remembered Dumbledore's eyes, wide, glassy and horrified, as the old headmaster fell backwards and off the tower. Draco felt his entire body stiffen at the terrible sight as Dumbledore fell – he looked Death in the eye.

He ran and he ran, out into the school grounds and the darkness of the night. The darkness he had been so used to for so much of his life, but now frightened him. All Draco wanted to do was to collapse to the ground and not move, not ever again. He had killed someone. He was a murderer. He was turning into Lucius – the very thing he wanted the least, because Lucius had always disgusted him.

Draco couldn't seem to breathe.

Hermione's eyes widened at Harry's words, disbelief masking her logic. It's not possible, she told herself, though she knew that Harry spoke the truth. Dumbledore could not be dead. Hermione felt herself losing balance – her entire world was being overturned. She attempted to take in huge gulps of air, each one only making her more lightheaded and dizzy than before.

"So scary," said Hermione to herself. Or perhaps she thought it to herself. She wasn't too sure – the distinction was becoming unclear. Nothing was clear at all as Hermione's mind tried to deny Dumbledore's death. "He's not gone," she said, "He's not gone."

His lifeless body was perhaps the scariest sight of Hermione's life. Her mouth opened and she let out a silent scream, backing rapidly away from the scene. No tears fell, however, and Hermione could only take in quick, shallow breaths as she detached herself from the crowd that surrounded Dumbledore.

Against the beautifully morbid darkness of the night sky, Hermione could make out two running figures, far from Hogwarts, down the path that wound away from where she stood. It was not clear to her how she recognised them, but she did. Perhaps it was his slivery-blond hair – but the night was dark, and there was no light to reflect off it. Perhaps it was the way he carried himself – but he was running and stumbling; he did not look at all like his normal self.

Perhaps it was illogical.

Draco glanced towards the woods that surrounded the school – darkness shadowed every corner. But he saw something else. Something darker than the night, something pitch black but standing out as if it were ivory. Something elegant and mighty, yet overpoweringly frightening.

One of them shook back its long, black mane and fixed Draco with its black eyes. It was then that Draco realised – he was seeing the Thestrals.

He wanted to run to the Thestrals, hoping that they would comfort him, for despite how chilling they were, Draco could feel understanding radiating off them. They knew what he was feeling, and Draco wanted that understanding.

But Draco did not do so. Instead, he turned away though it pained him, and ran. There was devastation happening, back in Hogwarts, but Draco would not stay to watch it unfold. He would not stay to mourn.

Death. What a peculiar word.

A/N: Ah, so there it was. Inspirational? Philosophical? Or just a piece of crap? (I sure hope not.) Please do review:)