Love and Death
I watched thee when the foe was at our side,
Ready to strike at him—or thee and me,
Were safety hopeless—rather than divide
Aught with one loved save love and liberty.
I watched thee on the breakers, when the rock,
Received our prow, and all was storm and fear,
And bade thee cling to me through every shock;
This arm would be thy bark, or breast thy bier.
I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes,
Yielding my couch and stretched me on the ground
When overworn with watching, ne'er to rise
From thence if thou an early grave hadst found.
The earthquake came, and rocked the quivering wall,
And men and nature reeled as if with wine.
Whom did I seek around the tottering hall?
For thee. Whose safety first provide for? Thine.
And when convulsive throes denied my breath
The faintest utterance to my fading thought,
To thee—to thee—e'en in the gasp of death
My spirit turned, oh! oftener than it ought.
Thus much and more; and yet thou lov'st me not,
And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.
Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot
To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.
-Lord Byron, "Love and Death"
o-o-o
Hermione knew when she accepted the temporary teaching position at Hogwarts that she would see him again. It had been ten years, but the thought of him made her heart race just as much as it had at the tender age of sixteen. Headmistress McGonagall had approached her and offered her the position as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor as the full time professor had fallen ill. It was temporary—a few weeks at most.
He had been her first thought, the first image that flashed across her mind his beautiful alabaster features and a deep, rumbling laugh that he'd only graced her with a handful of times. It was a cursed love affair from the beginning, with a War raging around them as they stood on opposing sides. They knew no good would come from the gentle intertwining of their hearts. But they'd fallen in love and parting had been such sweet sorrow. They had fallen in love at a time when the War was a far off dream, barely registering in their young, impressionable minds. It was a series of strange encounters that led to something more.
Hermione snuck into an alcove around the corner from the Potions classroom and grasped her time-turner in her hands, ready to give it three hearty spins. She'd been given the lucky charm at the start of the year as a way to take even more classes and further her education above and beyond.
"What's that you've got there, Granger?" came a soft voice, breaking with adolescent growth, from beside her in the shadows.
She bristled and attempted to hide it, but it was too late. A pale hand shot out of the darkness and took hold of the time-turner, a deft finger smoothing over the surface. She put her chin in the air defiantly. "I hardly think that falls under the realm of your business, Malfoy."
"No need to get testy. I was merely inquiring about where you came upon such an illegal trinket," he said, stepping out of the shadows and surveying the now clear halls. "I'm impressed," he called over his shoulder as he strutted in the direction of the Slytherin Common Room.
"Where do you think you're going?" she called, more irritated than she ought to be.
"You want to take extra classes for fun, I want a break from our regularly scheduled ones," he replied. "See you around, Granger."
…
Weeks after their first civil conversation in a shadowy alcove in the dungeons, Malfoy had committed his first civil act. Hermione was hurrying in the direction of Hagrid's cabin when the January wind whipped her soft Gryffindor scarf away from her neck. She watched as it twirled and danced through the air like a ballerina's pirouette before catching on the branch of a barren oak.
She turned around and huffed, knowing she would never be able to reach it. She ambled to the tree and set her heavy-laden bag down as she hopped once, twice in an effort to reach the end of the scarf—dancing just out of her reach. A gloved hand reached over her shoulder and pulled the naked branch down, carefully unwinding the cashmere tangle.
When she looked up, she caught sight of his steely grey eyes, a twinkle of amusement shining in them. Grey as the snow clouds swirling above, threatening to unleash on them that cold day. He pulled the scarf around her neck and made a show of wrapping it securely around her, taking special care to see to it that her ears were tucked in. "Are you always this much of a mess, Granger?" he teased, turning to head to their Care of Magical Creatures class.
A few murmurs of admiration and quiet civility had colored the rest of their third year, always out of ear and eyeshot of their separate groups of friends. They played the part of mortal foes, each stagewrights weaving an intricate tale of deception and sordid, secret whispers.
It had been months later when his lips had finally landed on hers. They'd skirted around the subject for months, neither wanting to admit that their secret friendship was turning into a budding teenaged crush. The Yule Ball had drawn to a close and he'd found her, crumpled in her periwinkle dress on the stairs, sobbing her eyes out over her pigheaded friend's snide comments.
She should have known he'd find her tucked away at the top of the stairs on the fifth floor. His eyes had been trained on her all evening, despite attending the Ball with separate dates. Ronald had been so cruel, so unnecessarily sardonic. She couldn't help the tears that fell from her eyes, splashing over her dress and turning periwinkle to midnight in their wake.
"What's he done now?" came the voice that now soothed her more than her own mother's.
"Accused me of 'fraternizing with the enemy,'" she replied, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
He retrieved a white handkerchief, an intricate 'M' embroidered in one corner, and offered it to her. She gave him a watery smile and dabbed her eyes. "He knows of us?" he'd asked, worry evident in his tone.
"No," Hermione shook her head. "Krum."
Malfoy let out a laugh. "I don't mean to laugh…but if Krum is an enemy, I must be an absolute death sentence."
Hermione smiled up at him, relishing the first laugh he'd directed, not at her, but for her. He glanced around them, seeing they were utterly alone. No students would be near any time soon. He held out a hand. "Care to dance?"
She dabbed her eyes once more and tried to hand him back the cotton kerchief. "Keep it…to remember me by," he said, a mischievous smirk gracing his features.
Hermione grinned and stowed the kerchief in the secretly sewn pocket where her wand rested. She slipped her hand into his and he bowed to kiss her dainty skin. Malfoy pulled her closer and, though there was no music, he hummed—horribly out of tune and disjointed for a boy so beautiful. But Hermione had savored that moment for its simplicity, for the feel of his skinny adolescent frame against hers, for the blissfully unaware friends stowed away in their beds away from them. Knowing their time was coming to a close, Malfoy had pulled away and looked at her, still holding the hand he'd used to lead their slow circles and tucked a stray curl into her slick coif. "You look pretty tonight, Granger."
His cheeks had turned rosy and a small smile played across his lips before he bowed his head slightly to meet hers. It wasn't the kiss she'd seen in Muggle films, where her leg pops out behind her and the two participants couldn't get enough of one another. No. This was a nervous, bumbling kiss that landed slightly to the right—a first kiss for them both. There was no deepening or tongues battling for dominance. Only a sweet, bashful brush of his lips on hers. And when he pulled away, he gave her a small smile and a chuckle. "Don't cry anymore."
By fifth year, they were meeting in darkened hallways and the restricted section of the library for hurried, feverish kisses between classes. Their acting had become such that the mock anger and agitation they played in front of others fueled a hormonal desire away from prying eyes. The hormonal urges culminated in the final days of their fifth year, worry and desperation nearly driving Malfoy into madness as Hermione sat in the hospital wing, recovering from a curse that Dolohov had sent her way in the Department of Mysteries. The night before her release from the hospital wing, he'd snuck in under the cover of darkness to see her.
Hermione was resting her head in the pillows, sleep refusing to come to her when she heard the tap! tap! tap! of feet padding across the stone floor. It was dark, the others fast asleep when his silvery blond hair peeked through the curtains. He saw her eyes shine in the dim moonlight and she saw a relieved smile flash across his face. He closed the curtains tightly behind him and threw up a quick silencing charm. "Granger!" he exclaimed in a hushed whisper.
She smiled weakly and lifted her left hand to his face as he sat beside her bed, pulling her right hand into his. "I'm fine," she whispered.
And she was. Now. "Oh, Merlin…I was so worried. I–I don't even know what to say…my father—" he couldn't speak anymore, his thoughts too jumbled to be coherent any longer.
Hermione knew what he was trying to say. "It was Dolohov. I'm sorry your father had to go away…" she comforted, though he knew she wasn't sorry for Lucius Malfoy, only for Draco's fragile state of mind.
"Everything will change now," he said, a heavy sadness weighing him down.
Hermione lifted her hand to his cheek once more and wiped away the single tear that slipped over his pristine features. "Meet me in the Room of Requirement tomorrow night at midnight," she whispered to him, desperate for a few stolen moments before they'd be separated for the summer.
…
Hermione had arrived at the Room of Requirement five minutes before midnight. The room had served as a training camp for Dumbledore's Army throughout the year. But as she paced in front of the empty wall where the door would appear, she wished for a cozier, intimate setting. Appropriate for heartfelt farewells and fond remembrances.
When she entered the room, she found Draco was already sitting on a plush couch by the fire. He looked pensive and his eyes were haunted in a way she'd never witnessed. "I'm scared," was his quiet confession as she closed the door behind her.
She quickly crossed to where he sat on the edge of the sofa, his arms resting on his thighs and he hung his head low into his hands. She knelt before him and pulled him to herself so that they were a crumpled pile of limbs on the floor, embracing, crying and shushing. He quieted his cries after a few moments and she felt for his predicament.
His lips found hers after a while, harsh and needy as he threaded a hand into her curls and pressed her face against his. Months of stolen kisses and promises of time alone leading up to this very moment. Draco sat on the floor and leaned back into the base of the couch as she knelt before him, unbuttoning his school uniform shirt with shaking hands. He gently grasped her hands and pulled away, looking into her face once more. "Are you sure?" and he searched her eyes for permission and hesitance.
But there was no hesitance. She was ready to give the beautiful boy, on the cusp of manhood, everything she had. She'd answered by pulling her own shirt up and over her head. She watched as his Adam's Apple bobbed anxiously in his throat before he brought a shaky hand up to caress her collarbone, to shy to drag his hand lower until she did it for him. After that, they'd undressed each other slowly, both anxious with first-time jitters, their kisses knocking and their caresses uncertain.
And their first time wasn't the picturesque love-making written in the pages of her mother's romance novels. No. It had been painful, quick and apologetic. But it had been theirs and no one and no circumstance could ever take those few frenzied moments from them. They both knew everything was going to change once they left the halls of Hogwarts for their summer before sixth year—neither knew the magnitude of just how much.
The present Hermione sat alone in the courtyard at Hogwarts where so many friends had perished all those years ago. It was brisk, much like that first day when he'd retrieved her scarf. She kept her eyes trained away from the Astronomy Tower, but she knew. She could feel his piercing gaze on her.
The sweet, tender Draco of the earlier years vanished not long after they parted ways from the Room of Requirement. By the beginning of their sixth year, he was all but gone, replaced instead with a frightened, melancholic martyr of a boy. He didn't spare her glances in the corridors any longer, their secret trysts in the restricted sections completely halting. Hermione had tried several times to get him alone, speak to him about whatever it was he was going through. It was after he spat a gruff, "Leave it be, Granger!" that she'd finally stopped pursuing him, the sting of rejection like an arrow wound to her heart.
After word got around that Harry had used an illicit curse on him and brought him nearly to the brink of death, the isolation became too much for Hermione to bear. She needed to be near him, to touch him, to hear his breathy chuckle. Just as he had the year prior, she padded into his corner of the hospital wing during the early hours of the morning, shrouded in darkness.
She slipped within the curtains and found him unconscious. The pitiful sight before her was enough to make her already fragile heart split into a million shards within her, each shard sliding through her arteries and making her blood sear within her. He was heavily bandaged from head to hips, blood seeping through the white cotton unnervingly. His beautiful face, those harrowing angular features, were covered and swollen and she knew that he would don scars across his body for the rest of his life—his first official war wounds.
She sat beside him, humming the horrible tune he'd hummed after the Yule Ball, only two short years prior, but so long ago. She held his hand and wished beyond hope that his eyes would flutter open, that he'd admonish her for being so foolhardy and falling in love with him so easily. She wished he'd draw his hand up and push a curl behind her ear as he'd done so many times before. But he didn't—couldn't. He only lie, stark still in the hospital bed, the rise and fall of his chest so faint she thought he might not have been breathing at all.
That was the night she made the conscious effort to let Draco Malfoy go.
After the word got around that Draco had been tasked with ending the Headmaster's life, Hermione felt the sting of betrayal fresh and cutting. She'd known whatever it was he was facing was monumental, but after a year of defending him to Harry—"No way is he a Death Eater!"—the newfound knowledge broke her psyche down in ways she never thought possible. The bumbling, nervous boy she'd given herself to completely was no more, replaced instead with a hardened Death Eater.
The Battle lines had been drawn and she found herself opposite the only boy she'd ever loved. The year that should have been their seventh at Hogwarts had been a trying year for the Golden Trio. Tempers were high and morale low. At night, nestled safely in her silenced tent in the woods, she cried herself to sleep as she thought of the pale boy she'd fallen in love with. She wondered where he was, what he was doing, if he was safe. Death Eater or not, there was a loving boy buried deep within the confines of his heart. She only wished they'd live long enough to see that loving individual emerge once more. It was nearly ten months and she'd seen neither hide nor hair of Draco Malfoy as she was always on the run with Harry and Ron, seeking the next Horcrux, the next death trap, the next advancement toward the impending Battle.
It was Easter when they were captured by the Snatchers. The Manor in Wiltshire loomed before them, gloomy and morose and she knew whose home it was, whose eyes she would have suffer in front of. Perhaps by his hand. What she was not prepared for was the empty look in his eyes when they finally met hers.
Hermione lay on the ground, writhing in sheer agony as she was hit with curse after curse. Bellatrix was unrelenting as she crucio'ed the young witch. In the distance, Hermione could hear a woman screaming and it wasn't until Bellatrix lifted her wand that she felt the raw, agonizing stinging of her throat. She had been the one screaming.
Bellatrix ushered the others out and leaned over Hermione for what felt like an eternity. Hermione alternated between screaming and crying as the enchanted dagger pierced her skin and when she was finished her torture, Bellatrix stood.
Behind the wicked witch, her nephew stood in the corner. His already porcelain features were somehow even more pallid, greyer than she'd ever seen on a living person. The circles around his eyes were deep violet, almost vampiric. But his eyes. His eyes were stony, set, empty. Devoid of any and all emotion. Hermione didn't even know if he saw her writhing in humiliating, torturous pain or if he stared straight through her. He made no move to stop his aunt, said not a word. He looked as Hermione felt in that instance: defeated, dead, done.
Hermione touched her left arm, a faded white slur still present in her skin. She had thought, as she lay on the marble floors in Malfoy Manor, that that day would be the worst of her life. Her one time love had watched on as she was tortured in his family home. If their binding ties hadn't already been severed, they certainly would have been after that skirmish. But it turned out, even the worst days of one's life could be topped, if only given the opportunity.
The courtyard was a chaotic scene after Harry fell from Hagrid's clutches, alive and ready to kill. It was the moment both sides had been fighting for for so long, they'd all wondered if it would ever come. Flashes of multi-colored light—reds and greens, but also blinding white and violent purples—were being thrown by both sides. People were falling rapidly and it was impossible to tell if it was because of a direct hit from the enemy or friendly fire.
Hermione turned and watched as a line of Death Eater's approached her, three against one and she started spewing forth any and every spell she could possibly think of, knowing she'd never be able to stave off their advancements alone.
As the middle Death Eater approached her, the other two were being attacked on from either side by Order members. But that middle man, tall with dead eyes, approached and raised his wand with a victorious smile. A jet of bright red spilled forth and headed straight for her. It never hit her, but something did. Something warm and solid.
It took a moment for her to recover and for her to realize it wasn't something, but someone who had knocked her down. She scrambled on her knees and found her beautiful boy on his back, his hands falling from his chest to his sides limply. She was unsure of the curse, but it had sliced a deep gash through Draco's chest and blood pooled around him in the most sinister fashion—spreading on either side of him like angel's wings springing forth.
Tears clouding her vision, she mumbled every spell she could think of to stop the bleeding, to close the wound. He had just enough energy to raise his hand a few inches from the grass to her knee. Draco looked at her and the corner of his mouth turned upright slightly. "Love…you…" he tried to croak, though blood was filling his throat and it came out a drowned, "loff oo."
There was the screaming again in the distance. It took her no time at all to realize it was her own anguished cries as she scooped him up, a crumpled pile of limbs on the ground. The Battle raged on around them as she clung to him, hoping that once the dying was over around her, there would be a way to bring him back.
It felt like hours before Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy pried the cooling body of their only son from Hermione's clutches. A confused Harry Potter and Ron Weasley pulling her into a standing position, assisting her in walking to a chair, where she collapsed in utterly defeated exhaustion.
It had been ten years. She hadn't seen him in ten agonizingly long years. But she felt his gaze on her, steady as could be. She'd heard the rumors, of course, of the melancholy ghost of the abandoned Astronomy Tower. She'd known right away whom that ghost would be. It could only be him.
On the last night she was to spend at Hogwarts, Hermione was finally driven mad by the painful longing in her heart. Teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, she'd had no reason to wander near the old Astronomy Tower. The Tower had been the site of Dumbledore's death—the kick-start to a War all were reluctant to fight, with Draco's task at the forefront. After the War, it had been abandoned and left to waste away in peace as the ivy and that which was natural overtook it. The students all feared the Ghost of the Astronomy Tower—a mere boy upon his death—quiet, pensive, morose.
She took the stairs two at a time and felt her heart clench when she heard his voice around the next curve of the staircase. It was the same, smooth velvety voice that had haunted her for years. Hermione heard that voice late at night, taunting her as she tried in vain to sleep. If she concentrated enough, she could feel its deep rumblings in her chest, clear as day. It was the voice of her stolen youth. "I thought you'd never come to see me, Granger."
Her heart stopped and her ears began to ring as she braced herself against the railing, willing herself to take the last few steps. He seemed to sense her hesitance. "I won't bite," he purred and she felt a shiver of longing run down her spine.
Everything in her told her to turn around and run—she knew he wouldn't follow. He never left the Tower. But, Merlin damn it all, she needed to see him. It was a constant, stinging ache that was ever present, heightened by her stay within the castle walls. She took the last few steps with her eyes closed, afraid if she opened them, she would get her wish.
"Open your eyes, love," she heard his subtle command and felt a strange coolness sweep through her that had nothing to do with the open air blowing through the Tower windows.
She took a deep breath and tried to still her rapidly beating heart. Draco had always had a power over her unlike any man she'd met before or after him. She would listen to his every command until the day she died. So she opened her eyes.
Before her, hovering slightly over the ground, was the spectral form of Draco Malfoy—a boy who died just shy of his eighteenth birthday, forever a boy on the verge of manhood. He looked exactly as he had the last time she'd seen him alive. He wore a dark colored suit that, in it's faded pewter shade, contrasted to the ethereal silver of his transparent body. His hair was white and falling into his eyes in a way that had made her weak at the knees when she was sixteen. He had a few scars marring his smooth features, brighter white than the pale glow of his skin. She'd almost forgotten how tall he'd grown as he matured, not yet a man but well on his way. His eyes were darker in his ghostly form, but still swirled with the depth of a thousand emotions all at once. His lips, full and ever inviting, curved into his trademark Malfoy smirk as he took in the sight of her—ten years older and looking more worn for the wear. "Still as bushy as ever," he commented teasingly as he lifted a hand to tug a curl, forgetting momentarily that his fingers would slide right through the wisps of hair.
He frowned at that for just a brief moment, but his smile returned. "Still as beautiful as ever," he whispered, taking another step to close the distance between them.
Hermione couldn't speak, couldn't think. She'd waited ten years to be reunited with her love. Part of her wanted to pitch herself off of the Astronomy Tower, just to be eternally reunited with him. She'd never have to feel the sting of loneliness and abject longing again. They could cross beyond the veil together and exist in peaceful bliss for all eternity. But her feet stayed grounded.
She lifted her hand and held it out in front of her in the way she always used to do when they'd duck into a quiet alcove—palm down, fingers spread to welcome his own between them. Malfoy smiled sadly and humored her. She made the effort to keep her fingers spread so he could slip his cool, translucent ones between as he had so many times before. She put her hand over where his heart would have—should have—beat. She wished beyond all hope that he would materialize, that she could feel the warmth that had comforted her in their youth.
It had been ten years and she could still feel the weight of him against her, his body no longer willowy and youthful, but strong and capable as he pushed her out of harm's way. She could still smell his distinctly Malfoy scent, suffocating her with every passing day. She could feel the warmth of his breath tickle across her face as he dipped down for a kiss between shelves of books, the thrill of their friends sitting only yards away making their hearts race.
He began humming his tune and slowly sidestepping, indicating he wished to dance with her one last time. Hermione knew this was goodbye, a true last farewell. She relished every moment she spent with the ghost she'd tried so desperately to leave behind. And the tears she'd waited so long for began to fall uncontrollably.
o-o-o
A/N: So, not gonna lie. This was the first time I've ever cried writing a story. I don't know why, but this morose little one-shot tormented me at four this morning.
Please review. I'd love to know if you cried too!