Happy birthday Melissa! Even though this is epically late. I have another one in the works, which I'm writing as we speak! Except I'm not speaking to you, I'm speaking to Mick... whatever. I hope you like it (even though I'm not sure how I feel about it... I like the second one more, but let's be honest, God only knows when you'll get that...)! I luff you! :)
They're standing, staring at each other. All around them, noises swirl- terrible noises, screams cut short and screams that carry on, sobbing and maniacal laughter that doesn't fit at all.
All of that fades when he catches sight of her.
He isn't used to seeing her like this, out in the open. Not used to this close proximity. Not in the light. He knows his way around her body in the dark, has all her curves memorized from skin on skin in dark classrooms and empty cupboards. Not the nicest places but they were private, and they were dark. And dark was essential. It was easier to pretend in the dark.
(pretendit'snother pretendit'snotyou pretenditdoesn'tfeelthisgood)
Now they're standing in front of each other and in this eerie lighting with a strange smell of death in the air he almost doesn't recognize her.
She suddenly whips her wand up and points it as his chest. He laughs without humour.
"Are you going to kill me Hermione?"
She has to, she knows it. It's not like it fucking meant anything, it couldn't, she wouldn't let it. It was a war and it didn't matter and she has to kill him now. For everyone. For Harry, for Ron. Oh God, Ron. Especially for Ron. How many times had she turned him down whenever he wanted to take her to Hogsmeade, and why? Because his voice kept ringing in her ears.
You're mine, Hermione.
"You don't have the right to call me that."
"You never used to have a problem with it. Or is it only alright when we're shagging?"
She hisses and jabs her wand at him. Red sparks fly out and burn his chest.
"Clever."
"I was always was smarter than you."
A smirk slowly crosses his face.
"A lot of good that'll do you now."
He looks at her and is astonished by the animosity in her eyes, but he doesn't let himself dwell on it.
(And anyway, it's better than indifference, right?)
"Are you going to kill me, Hermione?"
Her hand is shaking viciously and he knows that even if she did cast a spell, it very well might miss.
"I could. You know I could."
"You know," he starts, looking for all the world as if they were having a calm conversation about Quidditch, or the weather. "My mother homeschooled me before I went to Hogwarts. She taught me well. She was especially big on grammar. It was never can I go to the bathroom- it was may I.
"I have no doubt you could kill me, if you wanted to. It's simply a matter of if you will."
He's gambling, betting his life on whether or not she still feels something. Some little semblance of what used to be.
"You're a terribly clever girl, you know. Too clever for your own good. And you're a bloody Gryffindor. You're brave. But you're too goddamn sweet, Hermione. You're not a killer."
Sweet. She was sweet. Not only in her personality but in the way she tasted, that taste that stayed on his tongue for hours afterwards. It almost made him paranoid, as if everyone could see it, as if everyone knew he was carrying around Hermione Granger's aftertaste on his tongue.
Sweet. She was sweet. In the way she would bury her face in his neck and suck on the skin, leaving marks he had to cover with magic. The way her legs wrapped around him, trapping him in. Not that he minded.
"I don't have to be a killer to kill you. Just another angry ex-girlfriend."
He laughs cruelly. "You think shagging in broom cupboards qualifies you as a girlfriend?"
(you were so much more)
She blinks and he thinks he's hit a nerve. Her hand quakes even more.
"I could kill you."
Her voice is almost like she's asking a question and for some reason he nods.
"I should kill you."
Again a slow nod. He's lost all his cocky confidence now.
It was all fake anyway.
"But you won't."
That's not pleading in his voice. It couldn't be.
She stares at him. He can hear screams coming from behind him, beside him, in front of him, all around him, but he can't seem to tear his eyes away from hers.
one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand...
She can't. She should, she knows it, but she can't. It's his voice, it holds her. It encircles her body and takes a hold and floats in through her ears like a song and she's hit with a wave of memories and she can't kill him. His voice won't let her; his voice keeps her there, wand shaking, eyes wide.
She shakes her head once to each side.
"No. I won't."
His lips try to form a smile- a real, genuine smile- but he forces them down.
"How do you know," he says, stepping closer, his voice deadly, "that now, I won't kill you?"
Her mouth almost quirks up into an almost smile.
"Because, whether you like it or not, I know you better than you think. A lot of information can be derived from dark cupboards and empty classrooms."
"What kind of information?"
Her voice drops to a whisper, as if they're sharing a secret.
"Like even Draco Malfoy makes mistakes."
He shakes his head, inching forward. He isn't going to kiss her. He's not the foolish. That would be suicide.
He wants simply to be close to her. To smell her. To relive those times when her lips were attached to his neck and her legs were wrapped around him, those times when blood didn't matter because this, this is what human life was all about, skin on skin and the feeling of closeness you can only get from being inside someone, and who gave a fuck if it was Hermione Granger? For those few moments, nothing mattered except what felt good.
She waits for him, not even budging. Maybe he should be upset about this- everyone had always come to him, not the other way around- but he's not. He wants to touch her, badly. Right in the middle of this goddamn war. And he can see, by the way her body seems to lean towards him, that she wants to touch him too.
But then.
A flash of green.
A cackle.
And her dead eyes, falling to the ground.
He tries to catch her but he can't seem to make himself move, can't move his limbs, so instead she collapses against him and falls to the ground with a cold, final thunk.
He looks at her slumped on the floor and wonders, when am I going to wake up from this dream?
His eyes aren't seeing clearly. Everything is blurry. Colours all mix together and he can't tell the difference. He can't hear properly, either. It's like someone is repeatedly pressing on his ears and then taking the pressure off, before pressing on his ears again, over and over. Sounds are cut off.
Or maybe that's just people dying, their screams cut short.
Even through the haze of all his senses mixed together, he recognizes the face that walks out of the crowd, a face that's grinning maniacally despite the evil, angry glint in her eyes.
"What's wrong? Not feeling remorse for the Mudblood, are you?"
Her voice is mocking and he wants to reach into her throat and rip out her vocal cords, but he can't remember how to move.
All he can do is stare.
"She's better off that way, anyway. It's a more humane death than if the Dark Lord had have found her."
He wants to yell, to scream in her face, but he can't remember how to speak.
All he can do it stare.
She shakes her head pityingly and reaches out to cup his face. He flinches away and suppresses the urge to vomit.
"I'm doing you a favour, Draco. It's for your own good."
She walks away from him, her back turned, and he raises his wand but no spells come, no words at all.
It's for your own good.
Later on, he learns that Molly Weasley kills her and that's oddly appropriate, considering the Weasley boy hasn't stopped blubbering since he found out. He guesses it should help to know that she was taken down by scum, but all he can think of is her lips against his neck and her legs wrapped around him, skin on skin in a dark bedroom and that feeling of being alive.
Even Draco Malfoy makes mistakes.