Chapter One
Granger was dead. The snotty bookworm had been killed by some Death Eater on a raid through the Forest of Dean. Potter and Weasley got away. He didn't know how and he couldn't bring himself to care. All that mattered was the wild-haired and wild-heart Gryffindor girl was dead, and he was about to sleep as though it made no difference.
It shouldn't have made any difference.
Draco Malfoy didn't like Hermione Granger. In fact, he detested her. He hated her blood and her brains, and along with her stupid friends, he made fun of her. He spent many of a free time making their lives miserable. It was the best part of his day. Only now, looking back on those innocent childhood days within the castle walls, he craved to see her face again, a symbol of everything he hated in everything that he loved. The magical world, the magical school, her magical eyes, and now she was dead, and suddenly, the war was real and his blood was a shame.
He had seen people die, people that were mudblood and blood traitors. It was terrifying at first, but Draco was adept at shutting down compassion, and soon he learned to lower his gaze. Not a sign of respect, mind, but not to give a sign that he cared. He did care. No one could know that. No one could suspect.
Why couldn't he do it then? The mudblood was dead. He should have been happy - if he was raised right. While they were in rival Houses and on opposite sides of the war, and had known her as an enemy since they met at the age of eleven, he did know her. Part of his childhood was ripped away. Even if it was an annoying part that he once would love nothing more than to get rid of, it was gone.
If that was all of the truth, Draco was a liar.
Standing at the side of his bed he stared down at the neatly drawn covers. The houselves.
Granger and her S.P.E.W. The stupid buttons she made. The stupid fliers. The stupid ideals. The stupid compassion. The stupid girl. The stupid, idiotic, frizzy-haired monstrosity -
Draco seized a corner of the covers, and ripped them off. Violently he threw them over the room. Like a man without a mind, he screamed as he shoved the mattress to the floor. He wanted to cause damage. He wanted stare at the horror that was spinning in him, making him blind.
Breathing hard, he approached the window. It was dark and the lights were on, and all he could see was his mirrored reflection. His pale hair was crossing over his eyes and his cheeks were covered in a days worth of stubble. Normally, he would blanch at the thought of looking in such disarray, but everything that used to hold importance no longer held its usual status.
Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the hillside where he used to practice Quidditch. One sweet memory in one sweet second and in the next he saw Granger's face curtained by bushy hair hovering over his right shoulder.
He gasped and spun, and with his back to the cold glass, he looked at the dead girl in front of him.
She spoke. One word. His name. "Draco."
Draco fainted.
"Malfoy?"
He blinked, and a blurry Granger came to view. Only, her blurriness did not go away. She was watery, unreal. She was a ghost. Granger was a ghost and she was there.
"Granger." He groaned and sat up. "You're dead."
"One for the obvious, aren't you, Malfoy?"
"What in Merlin's trousers are you doing as a ghost?"
Her eyes glistened with what would have been tears, if she hadn't been dead. "Someone killed me..."
"Yeah, a Death Eater. So what?" No one could know. Not even Granger.
"No..." She shook her head. "It wasn't a Death Eater." She reached for him, but her hand fell through his chest, and she emitted a wet gasp, a choke. "Malfoy... Ghosts... They stay back until they settled the reason why they died. I want to go... I have to go home."
Draco knew that she wasn't speaking of her mudblood house in her mudblood neighborhood with her mudblood parents. He never took Granger to be religious, but he could see how easily it could be for her. Reading a dusty old book written by dead people was a very Granger thing to do. In fact, that was all she did. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"You're the only one I can trust."
"I'm the last person you should trust. Why don't you haunt your friends? Where are Potter and Weasley?"
The translucent tears spilled over. "The wand I saw... It was Ron's wand. But... He couldn't have... It was taken. By a Death Eater. I want you to prove it. I want you to find Ron's wand. Please!"
"You're mad. You're a mad ghost, Granger." He scrambled to his feet, and stumbled back away from the girl.
Granger stayed on her knees, staring down at her hands. Or the floor. He couldn't tell.
"I want to fade away from this place the way I should have. You see... I shouldn't be here. I accepted that going with Harry meant that I was going to die. I can't go to them like this. I don't want to... I don't want to hurt them. You don't understand about hearts, Malfoy." She looked up through the parting in her mangy hair. "You broke mine."
"I told you what I was. I told you what I had to do!" Draco looked quickly to the door, praying that no one heard him, but it was silent. Everyone was in the parlor, mulling over their drinks, saluting a job well done for killing the brains of the operation. Potter would be an easy catch now that Granger was dead. If only they knew that Granger was with him.
"Remember, Malfoy?"
He looked at her, and memories cropped up of their short tryst, memories he buried long ago to keep both of them safe. There were secret glances, secret touches, a secret longing. He recalled what should have been their last stolen moment. It was after the Yule Ball. She was a mess from a fight with Weasley, out in the corridor in front of a frosted window, wiping her hot tears. He could have walked past her, but the image of how beautiful she was even in the state she was in wouldn't leave him. He should have left her, but he took her out onto the third floor, into an empty classroom that he decorated with icicles and snow.
"Malfoy? What are you doing? If you plan on hurting me, I assure you one of the professors -"
"Shut up, Granger. For Merlin's trousers, you never keep that gob closed, do you?" He set her outside of a door he knew was no longer in use. "If you're not here when I return, I'll make things difficult for you."
"You say that as though it doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter."
"You don't care?
"I never cared, Granger." He slipped inside and quickly waved his wand at the walls, the ceiling, moving all of the desks aside. He brought out a wireless from a cupboard in the corner It played a ballad unknown to him as snow drifted softly from the ceiling. Icicles formed on every edged surface.
Draco opened the door. "Get in here, Granger."
She ducked into the room hesitantly her hand tightly clutching her purse that no doubt had her wand in it. Her mouth gaped slightly at the sight before her. "It's lovely."
He wanted to say the same about her, but without anymore words, he took her hand and pulled her to him. He rested his hand uncomfortably on her hips, they fit so perfectly. They swayed in time with his steps.
"Malfoy -"
Hushing her, he whispered, "one more night."
She nodded absently, her eyes far-off.
Now she was dead, and he could kill Potter and Weasley. He never liked the lot of them, but he never truly wished for their death. He did now. He wanted their heads on the wall with the other past houselves. He wanted them to see for themselves what became of their best friend, kneeling as a ghost before their worst enemy and former lover.
"Hermione," he whispered, and he flinched. Her name on his tongue was forbidden. It was worse than those muggle blokes she talked of. Roman and Julie - bollocks. He read the blasted script, and they could have been together. They ruined it. Him and Granger... They were doomed from birth. They had nowhere to go.
"Draco... Please... Help me."
He bowed in front of her, his knees just shy of hers. He reached out his hand to touch her wet cheek, but his fingers only grazed a winter's breath. That was all she was. It shouldn't have been. Hermione Granger of all people. The brightest witch of their age was gone and it was a waste. A waste of smarts.
Funny. All of his life he believed she was all but a waste of space, but now the truth reigned him in, forcing him to look at the real truth. Her transparent presence on the earth was a waste.
"I'll find Weasley's wand..." And if it was Weasley who killed her - accident or not - he would die by Draco's wand.
She should have never came to him. She should have never been a ghost. She should have done what he told her to, and stayed far, far away. He didn't know that her friends would be her doom, not him.