A/N: Yes, it's another round of SHEALTIEL'S HET CHALLENGE! This is dedicated to all who love me but hate my slash, Saralisa in particular… Oh, and Hayley. Kitty, I can write het. I am totally capable of it.

Only, I just prefer slash (:

(points) "Look! It's an angsty het!"

.-xXXx-.

My dear, as much as I hate to admit it, Dumbledore was right. There are things worse, much worse, than death.

"How could I, in all my naïveté, make a comparison to the mind of the greatest wizard in the world?" is the question in your eyes.

"I knew you would come" are the words on your lips.

You're wielding your wand at me and your eyes are full of anger, yet I am not afraid. Fear is long gone. The hollow cavity in this chest of mine where emotions used to dwell is empty, and shall stay empty forevermore.

You are no match for me. I have years of experience on my side, and not even brains can combat that.

I do not answer the unspoken question etched in those beautiful, hateful eyes of yours, because you already know the answer.

I am here to kill you. We both know it.

"Why wasn't it me?" I say calmly, trying to still my shaking hand. "Why was it him?"

"It was always him," you reply quietly, lowering your wand. "You knew that."

It always comes back to that. Hogwarts was twenty years ago; he was twenty-seven years ago, and yet it was always, always him.

"It never stopped me."

"I didn't expect it to. I know you."

You know me so well, my presence isn't unexpected. We were never friends, and yet you know me.

You knew I stood in the back of the church as you wed him, crying silent tears that had nothing to do with the wedding, and everything to do with you. You knew I wept as you announced the birth of your first child in the Daily Prophet.

And yet it was always him.

It was always him for you, in the same way that it was always you for me.

And you knew it.

"It was always me for him, too," you say quietly. "It was never anyone else. That's what the difference is."

And I'm so angry that I'm so transparent, that my every thought is written on my face, that I do the unthinkable. I do the inexcusable. I do the Unforgivable.

The last word on your lips is his name.

His. Not mine.

You were never mine, and I knew it.

And I hate you for it; I hate that you were his; I hate myself for wanting you to be mine.

He walks in while I am still sobbing over your body. He swears at me and attacks me; all thoughts of wands are forgotten as blow after blow finds its mark.

I thought myself incapable of emotion once, but I know that I hate him. I hate him more than I hate you; more than I could ever hate myself.

And then there is darkness, and the last word I utter is your name: "Hermione…"

And then, and only then, he understands.

Your last word echoes in my mind: "Ron…"

And the last thing I ever hear is my name on his lips, spat like some venomous poison from his mouth: "Draco."

And then there is nothing.

.-xXXx-.

A/N: Could anyone guess who it was before the end? Apart from Saralisa, that is?