A/N: so sorry if there are any mistakes, I've read over this but I'm not a professional editor so...also, please review! This is going to stay as it is but I may do more one-shots if you all seem to like them. Also, criticize me but please don't tell me I suck. Tell me I suck and then why. I'd like to improve myself. Thanks and happy holidays!

He started walking down the hallway, the empty thing it was, and heard his footsteps echo and bounce. Everything was quiet, too quiet, like it always was. Ever since he'd been small it was quiet, and there was nothing he could do to make it any louder. He'd tried. Oh, how he'd tried, but it was a secret sort of quiet. It was the sort of quiet that nobody knew about except a select few, the ones who had heard the screams that once filled the house, the ones who knew it's past. And he was the only one left who knew, so it was his secret quiet, and one that he had to bear alone.

It was particularly silent on this day, and he needed it to be quiet. When he was a child, the day was filled with extravagant gifts and coddling, and nobody was ever quiet or cruel. When he became older, the gifts became yelling and coddling turned into sneering, and he learned the truth of the world: Nobody cared about a small, blond little boy who had been spoiled. They only yearned for blackness, for darkness and death. So he pretended that he did, too.

He turned into one of the sneerers, the yellers. He did his best to squash hope and encourage cruelty, and became more adamant about it as he got older. And then came the year he had to put that cruelty into action and he couldn't, so he fled. He fled and read the newspapers and then burned them, looked at gravestones and then ran, listened to the radio he kept secret and then yanked the cord out of its socket. He needed the news but hated it. He just wanted to be alone.

And then, when it was all over, when everyone died and lived and stayed and left, when things were done and over with, only then did he come out of hiding. His mother was gone, his father was crazy and he was left to sort everything out on his own. He was left to take ownership of dark artifacts and torture chambers, of chains and keys and locks and other things that he didn't want and never liked.

Years passed and he became a recluse, never taking visitors and living all alone, not a house elf, not a servant, no company. He couldn't bear to see anyone, to see people that he had hurt or had helped in hurting. He couldn't risk the immense guilt that would crush him, that had killed him all those years ago when he ran away. So he bore these days alone, and on Christmas he would sit in his living room and stare at where the tree used to be, sometimes crying and sometimes not. He never wore red or green. And he never forgot, and he never forgave himself. He lived in agony.

Hermione was tired. She was tired of all the laughter and happiness that everyone just sprang back to after it ended. She couldn't bear the constant smiles after all the dead and all the living had been decided. She couldn't bear the signt of Harry losing himself, and of Ron hiding. So she left.

She didn't know where she was going at first, or where she would end up. She had no one to turn to. Her parents wouldn't remember her and she didn't' want to bother them, and all of her old friends were either dead or done, and she knew she was all alone. So she went to the only place she could think to go: Hogwarts.

She was accepted quickly into the faculty, blending quietly and immaculately into their circles. And there she stayed, trying to find the pieces of herself in the secret passageways and talking portraits, but always feeling alone. Just alone, and it was the worst feeling in the world.

The Prophet was an unreliable source. It was gossip and untrue, and the only reason Hermione still ordered it was to keep herself from thinking. But there was one article, a single one in the very back that caught her eye and made her hope, for the first time in a long time, that she wasn't alone. It didn't matter who he was, only that someone was like her. That there was one person who saw the pain masked by smiles and wished they could be normal, and closed himself off. That there was someone left who grieved.

Draco Malfoy heard a quiet knock on the door of his quiet manor in the middle of his quiet grieving. He startled. No one should be there.

"Go away," he said, his voice gruff. He hadn't spoken in years and he had forgotten how.

A muffled noise came from behind the door, and then a slight knock and squeak. And then the door opened to reveal someone he wasn't sure existed, someone he wasn't sure was there. It had to be a mistake. It was a hallucination or a nightmare anything but real, and he knew it.

"I said go away."

Hermione shook her head quickly and furiously, refusing to leave. She needed to see for herself, to confirm that he was broken as well.

"If you won't go away, I will."

With that, Draco got up and walked snappishly down the hallway to his room, Hermione following him all the way. He went straight for his nightstand and picked up his wand and neatly swished it twice. Two items flew towards him: a picture that Hermione couldn't make out and a bag of galleons. Hermione knew what he was about to do before he did it.

She lunged forward and latched herself onto his arm just as he began to apparate, causing a pain in her right shoulder and tears to form in her eyes. She wasn't going to let him go. She needed to know why. Why he was as broken as her.

They touched down in the middle of a range of hills and mountains, a cave to their right and a waterfall to their left. Hermione yelled in pain and tore herself off of Draco, staggering towards the water and sitting down at the banks of the small pool that formed around the falling water. She cupped some water in her hand and poured some on her injured shoulder, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

Draco watched her for a moment and set off in the opposite direction, muttering about idiots and stupidity and bigoted fluffy-haired witches. He didn't get far before the guilt descended upon him. Too many people had been hurt because of him without her being included. He turned around.

When he got back, it seemed she had gotten herself a bit better, and she was conjuring what looked like a sling. He stood there for a while, taking it in.

He hadn't seen her for 5 years, not since he was sixteen. She looked the same. Her hair was still bushy, her manner still to the point, but something was different. There was a grayish pallor to her cheeks, and something about her eyes reminded him of himself. He saw the sadness and aloofness, but something more. Loneliness. She was all alone, just like he was. He took a step forward.

Hermione heard the crunch of leaves and twigs under his feet and hurriedly wiped tears off her face, forcing her eyes to go cold. She only wanted to see if someone was like her, if she wasn't crazy. But she was wrong to seek him out.

She looked up and he stopped, taken aback by the cold gaze of her angry eyes, by the familiar way she was glaring at him.

"What do you want?" she asked cooly, decetptively calm and collected.

"That's my question. Why did you find me?"

At that she sighed. She was going to leave once her arm hurt less, but she couldn't risk apparating. So he could follow her. She might as well answer, to drive him away so the walk to civilization was less painful.

"There was an article in the paper. It said you had been left alone for five years today, that nobody dared come to the intentionally secluded manor for fear of your wrath. And I thought that maybe you needed someone, that maybe you were like me. I was wrong to come. Now go off to your little house so I can walk to a town or something."

Draco stopped, just standing. She couldn't know his agony.

"You shouldn't meddle in things you have no idea about," he said, sneering. She was just a silly little girl, believing a little bit of pain could compare to the torture that guilt brought him. She knew nothing.

And then he started walking. He needed to let off his anger, so he kept walking for a long time. He walked and walked and walked until he could walk no more and it was almost dark, until his muscles ached and his throat burned for water. Then he sat down on the damp ground and did nothing. And he did nothing for a long time.

Hermione expected him to storm off, so she did too. After sufficient apparating time, of course. She walked for a long time, waiting to hear cars or voices or anything but she didn't. Eventually she began getting tired, so she started looking for a place to settle down. And, for no reason, she started crying. This was the last chance she had given herself to try, to be okay, and it was on a Malfoy. He was bound to brush her off, and she didn't know why she'd given her hope to him. It was stupid. And she was over.

She stumbled on, until she finally fell. She needed rest, so she would get it.

Hermione ordered herself to stop thinking and sleep. She'd already had her moment of weakness. It was time to move on.

Just as she was about to get to sleep amid the rustle of bushes and the chirping of crickets, she heard a noise. It small. It was insignificant. It was human.

Hermione got up and looked around, walking this way and that until she saw it. A patch of raw, pink skin and jerking movement. She got closer and saw the white hair, the long hands and the thin arms. It was Malfoy, and he was having a nightmare.

Draco woke up shaking and scared to the incessant yelling of her. He groaned in annoyance.

"What?"

"You were having a nightmare so I thought I'd have the common courtesy to wake you up. Sorry if I've offended you." she fumed, and it made her hair get bushier. It was a little funny to someone who had woken up three seconds previously. But she said he was having a nightmare so amusement turned straight into panic.

"Malfoys don't have nightmares, Granger. Whatever you thought you were doing, don't."

And that, for some reason, set her off.

"So you're going to pretend that the high and mighty Draco Malfoy wasn't having a nightmare? Well I don't buy it. Everyone has nightmares, at least, everyone who has a heart. And the only thing that keeps me going and makes me get up in the morning to deal with foul people like yourself is the fact that there may be someone out there who does have a heart and understands that there's something entirely wrong to have a smile on their face after just about every single person they used to know and love has been killed, and it's entirely your fault for not protecting them. But, maybe that's just too much hope to put in someone such as yourself. I'm sorry I wasted your time."

And with that, walked quickly and determinedly away, angry tears welling up in her eyes. She willed them away.

Draco didn't know what impulse made him decide to grab her arm, but he did. He ran up to her just before she walked out of sight, took her arm and turned her around.

"Granger, you don't know anything," he said, to see her reaction. It was satisfactory.

"The hell I don't! You think you were the only one affected by the war? Well, there's a new thing coming to you." And then Draco knew he could trust her, whatever the past held.

"Granger, what happened to you?" he asked quietly and suddenly, making her angered look freeze on her face. She didn't know how to answer him, that was obvious.

"Because I think the same thing happened to me."

At this, she stilled. So it was true, then. He was as done as she was. And for some reason, this made her feel small and unimportant, but also hopeful. She tilted her head back to look him in the eyes.

"So you finally realized you're not the center of the universe," Hermione said softly.

"I've always known, I just didn't want to acknowledge anyone else."

Hermione laughed.

They managed to find their way to a small town about an hour away, and from there took a car to Malfoy manor so that Hermione didn't splinch herself any more.

Once they got to his sitting room, Draco made her sit down while he got a variety of potions he had for pain and healing, and he tended to her surprisingly gently. Hermione felt a bit awkward, letting him feel up her shoulder with a plethora of ointments and giving her potions to drink.

Once that was all over, they sat in silence. It wasn't an awkward silence, nor was it a comfortable silence. It was just silence, and Hermione was glad he didn't need to fill the time with strange talk.

"So what made you decide to come find me?" he asked, hoping for a better answer than she'd given him before.

"Well," she said hesitantly, "Everyone was acting like nothing had happened. I've spent the last five years just hoping that my hope would come back, but it wouldn't show until I read that article in the newspaper."

"And now?"

"I think that everything could be all right."

The strange thing was, so did he. Everything was all right. He could forgive himself. He could be free.

Hermione stayed there. It wasn't spoken about; it was an unconditional and silent agreement, knowing that they both needed company. They both needed someone like each other.

So months passed, and they grew more comfortable until, one morning, Draco found that fated newspaper the daily prophet from when she found him.

"Hermione!" he yelled to her from across the house.

"What?" she yelled back.

"Come here," he yelled, so she did.

"Look at this."

Hermione laughed. "That's what brought me here!"

"Then I should be thankful." Draco said.

"What?"

"Nothing."

They went into the kitchen and started making coffee. Draco watched Hermione while she cleaned out two mugs for them. There was something about her that made him feel calm, that helped him stay happy. He didn't know what it was before. But right then he knew.

"Hermione," he whispered.

"Yes?"

"Turn around."

And there he was, not six inches away from her, pinning her to the sink. Her breath hitched and she barely managed to choke out her next words.

"So you finally caught on?"

Draco looked confused, then elated. His eyebrows rose as he smirked.

"To myself, yes, but never to you."

Hermione smiled, and then they were kissing, his left hand on her hip, the other in her unruly hair. She pressed him to her, grateful that she had this, that she'd come there all those months ago on a sad Christmas day to confront him about loneliness. She had what she needed, and she would never go back.

The next day, a paper was published to the shock of the wizarding world.

Draco Malfoy No Longer Alone.

And then right under that article was another.

Hermione Granger Finally Found After Months Of Searching.

And they were both completely, unarguably true.