Blood-Stained Apologies

Hermione Granger coughed, and blood dribbled from her mouth onto her cheek before dripping onto the snow-covered ground. She closed her eyes in pain.

Draco watched.

He was sat on a rock two or three feet away from the injured girl lying on her back. He stared, captivated, as the warm blood slowly moved across the snow, snake-like, melting each individual flake and colouring it crimson. He paid little attention to the girl herself, apart from glancing at her chest once in a while to see if she was still breathing, or looking at the bloody wound in her stomach where the sharp, broken icicles had pierced her body.

He was waiting for her to die.

She had given up asking him for help ages ago. He was not about to let her live, and he could not help her with a quicker, painless death because he did not have his wand with him. Besides, he wasn't sure he would have done so even with the choice. This entire spectacle was fascinating. Seeing the life drain out of her drop by drop overwhelmed him in a way he couldn't describe. Being able to prevent someone from living - killing them, in effect - by just sitting here and doing nothing filled him with an immense feeling of power.

He would watch, and then he would report back and be rewarded.

Suddenly, a strange, shivering noise began to emanate from her mouth. It took him a moment to realise that she was laughing, as much as her broken body would allow her to.

"What's so funny?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Nothing..." she replied, her breathing laboured. "It's just, I never... thought I'd be spending my last... moments... with you."

Draco smiled. "The fickle finger of fate, eh?"

She looked like she wanted to move her head, but then found that she couldn't. "'S not... fate, Malfoy... It's you. Your fault. You're responsible for me... dying, here. Now." She took a ragged breath. "With you."

"Well, isn't that a cheery thought?" He grinned and shifted his position on the rock to lean forward.

She closed her eyes and sighed. "No," she said, frowning.

Draco found himself examining the creases on her forehead; the way her eyebrows arched just so... He shook himself out of it with a laugh. "I suppose you want me to apologise."

"No. Wouldn't help... Wouldn't mean it." She opened her eyes again and Draco inexplicably felt himself compelled to crawl closer, to lean over her and look into them. "I want you to mean it," she said, looking straight up at him.

He shook his head. "I can't."

She sighed again and looked away. "You're crippled, in the head... like I am, in the body..."

He took some offence at that. "Hey, I-"

"Question is," she said, interrupting him and once more locking her gaze with his so that he could not make himself look away, and found that it was difficult to even want to, "Do you want to mean it?"

The question sent Draco into more inner turmoil than he could ever have anticipated. "I-"

"I'm glad I was..." Her voice sank to a level barely above a whisper. "With you..."

And just like that, even though she did not move, Draco saw the fire vanish from behind her eyes.

He sat there feeling completely stupefied for almost a minute, his mind feeling empty, yet at the same time buzzing with things he did not fully understand. Then he blinked, and knew what to do.

Carefully, almost reverently, he took her pale hand in one of his and held it up to his mouth to kiss it.

"I'm sorry," he said, and closed her eyes.