Disclaimer: These incredible characters belong to Jo Rowling - I only wish to borrow them for a quick adventure or two.
Warning: Explicit language and mature content.
This story takes place during the 7th book of Harry Potter - please, if I get any information wrong, just drop me a note and let me know.
Chapter One: Nothing Good About Goodbye
"The trip to the Ministry was a complete flop, Hermione -"
She shook her head violently, bushy hair defying Newton's law of universal gravity as it flung about in the air.
Hermione sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair, bum aching, in the magically enhanced tent. She had crossed her arms so tightly she was beginning to loose feeling in her fingers. Hermione's face was set in what she hoped was a stony expression, but with the face she's got, she never really knows until she's taken a nice long look in the mirror and rearranged her features to the desired expression.
Harry stood in front of her, green eyes pleading, glancing every now and then towards Ron for moral support.
"It was not a complete flop!" Even to her, Hermione's voice seemed unnaturally shrill and petulant: she felt the intense need to cringe at the high-pitched sound. Did something just die in your larynx? She cleared her throat and tried again. "It wasn't a complete flop, Harry. We took the locket from Umbridge, we saved a group of half-bloods, we got out alive-"
Harry snorted and gestured stiffly towards Ron, who was barley awake and was struggling to stay conscious. Her heart did a guilty flip, but she wouldn't, no, she couldn't, let that stop her from trying to persuade Harry to let her stay.
"He's alive," Hermione said shortly, ignoring how stupidly shallow that sounded. "He'd be having a much harder time if I weren't here-"
"Hermione, listen." Ron's voice was weak and slightly slurred. Both she and Harry snapped their heads to stare at him - it was the first time he had spoken above a whisper in the past few hours. Granted, he sounded like he'd just woken from the dead, but at least he was talking. He looked pointedly at her.
His face was pale and if Hermione were any closer she could probably count each freckle that sprinkled across his nose. The dullness of his eyes scared her but the look on his face frightened her even more. He wore the same expression Harry did; a grim determined look she hadn't seen on his face since their first year, when he had clambered onto the back of that chess piece.
She couldn't bare to see that unyielding look on his face; instead she glared down at the canvas ground, cursing the tears that swelled behind her narrowed eyes.
"What happened to me was an accident. But accidents happen all the time, Hermione. Especially to us. And, oh Merlin, if anything ever happened to you and Harry and I were unable to fix you-" His throat seemed to close on him and he fell silent.
Hermione could feel their eyes on her as the first frustrated tear slid from her cheek to her chin to the ground and buried itself in the tan material. The track it left on her face felt cold and stiff and yet she couldn't manage to loosen her arms from their tight position to wipe it away.
"I'm not leaving." Her voice broke on its own accord.
When Harry turned away from her, everything seemed to fall apart.
She began to cry in earnest - she couldn't help it, the watergates had opened and there was no way of closing them now. She stupidly clawed at my sides, trying to push away the sorrow that was spreading within her stomach, as if the pain she was inflicting with her fingers would do the job.
"I'm- I'm not lea-leaving. You can't ma-make me!" She looked up at Ron. He met her eyes briefly before casting his away.
Hermione hated him for it.
Harry's back was rigid and his head hung low, so low she could barely see it. He looked as if he were one of the ghosts at Hogwarts, beheaded three quarters of the way, forced to push his head back into place every now and then when a cocky third year would make some jibe about it. The thought was almost funny to her, in her delirious, sniveling state - hell, it was funny, who was she kidding? - but the idea of being back at Hogwarts made her insides knot with longing.
How easy it would be just to be another student at Hogwarts, how simple life could be under the rule of adults.
How quickly I would be kicked out, captured, sent to Azkaban, tortured, maybe even killed, she reminded herself bitterly. Best friend of Undesirable Number One. One-third of the most wanted trio in Britain.
There was no going back for her. There was no going back for any of them. Their fates were sealed long ago, the day those two boys, her boys saved her from that troll.
So why did they think they could just send me away?
"What would I do?" She asked, pulling herself together piece by piece. "Tell me, Harry-" because it was obvious this was Harry's idea; Harry Potter, The Boy Who Didn't Need Anyone. No, she corrected herself, staring at his still form through weary eyes. Harry Potter, The Boy Who Never Asked For Any Help. Harry Potter, The Boy Who Needed It The Most.
Harry Potter, who just shook his head.
Her best friends were pushing her away, leaving her behind when they needed her the most. Hermione could feel the blood rushing to her head, pounding in her ears. How could they be so incredibly dense not to know that?
"You two are bloody gits, you know that?" Oh, she was angry. Beyond cross. She leaped from the chair and pulled from her sleeve her wand, sparks flying from it's tips. "Complete arses. Barmy prats-" She wracked her brain for much more vulgar insults but she was embarrassingly low on vocabulary. As far as obscenities were concerned, Hermione knew hardly any. Her parents would leap across tables to cover her ears if ever a profanity came along - and that's no exaggeration.
The thought of her parents made the walls of the tent quiver and she had to take a few calming breaths.
Harry had turned around to stare at her, ignoring her wand which seemed to have taken a life of it's own, sparks of dark colors leaping from the tip, drizzling to the ground. He shook his head at her, afflicted eyes filled with remorse.
Suddenly, the wand in my shaking hand disgusted her.
She dropped it like it had caught fire and Hermione squinted at her hand, halfheartedly inspecting for burns. Her head buzzed and swirled while Harry's white face blurred in and out of her vision. She could feel her shoulders slumping, pulling her towards the ground and she let herself drop to her tired knees.
She gazed at her hands, mesmerized by the drops of water that seemed to be falling from her face to her knuckles, confused as to why everything was so bloody blurry and why each time she took a shuddering breath her chest was pierced with the sharp pain of - of what?
Of defeat.
Because even then she knew this was one battle she could not win. Harry would make sure that she would not come with them even if it tore that great big conscience of his to bits. Because it was safer that way. Safer for her.
Because Harry Potter never puts his friends in danger.
Intentionally.
"Why does Ron get to stay?" She asked as she rocked back to sit on her bum and clumsily wiped at her face with the palms of her hands. It was a silly question to which Hermione already knew the answer to. Because she's too important to them, because she's a girl, because it's too dangerous, because, because, because.
But she needed to hear him say it. She needed to hear him say it because it would make it much easier to hate him after they casted her out, after they sent her away.
Harry bent and took Hermione's arm. He hauled her up and walked her over to her bunk, sitting her down gently before pulling out his wand and flicking it this way and that, gathering her things and sending them zooming into her enchanted bag.
"Harry," She moaned. She shook her head and once again her hair defied gravity with the fervent movement. "Harry, Harry don't. Please! Ron, Ronald Weasley, you can't let him do this to me! You can't do this to me!" He bowed his head and she noticed how shaggy his hair had grown. He'd be needing a haircut soon. Who would cut his hair for him if she weren't around? Harry couldn't be trusted with scissors, and knowing them, they'd probably try to hex it off.
"You're my best friends," Hermione whimpered, staring at the disheveled back of Harry's head. He'd be needing a haircut as well. "You can't just put me out. Not now. You know you need me, Dumbledore left me that book for a reason, if only I could figure out why-"
"You can figure it out in safety. At the Burrow, or in Australia with your parents-"
Something in her snapped.
"My parents don't remember who I am, you twat!" She screeched, taking a pillow from the bunk and hurling it at his stupid face. "I sent them away, I made them forget the biggest part of the last seventeen years of their lives so that I could come with you and hunt Horcruxes and now you're asking me to go back to them? They'll be in even more danger if I'm with them!"
"And you'll be in even more danger if you're with me!" Harry yelled back. She felt a grim satisfaction. She wanted him to be angry. Hermione wanted him to hurt.
Merlin, what a selfish bitch she was.
"Don't you get it, Hermione? I'm Undesirable Number fucking One. Every witch and wizard and bloody creature in the country, shit, in Europe is either out to get me or refuses to acknowledge me because they're so fucking afraid-" He cut himself off with an angry grunt. Harry stood in the middle of the tent, breathing deep as his shoulders violently rose and fell.
Hermione rose to her feet, slightly shaking, and reached her hand out to him, her anger dissipated. "I get it, Harry." Her voice was gentle and had a cooing quality to it that she never realized she could produce. "I get it, more than you probably know. Harry, it's okay to be afraid. It's okay to ask for help-"
"Not from you," he said savagely. Hermione flinched violently away and Ron sucked in a startled breath from where he had been silently propped up.
"Now, Harry, mate-" Ron began.
"No." Harry flicked his wrist and now her belongings were flying around, bumping into the canvas walls and banging into her bag. "Just shut up, Ron. Both of you. Shut. Up."
He turned to Hermione, meeting her eye at last, and the look on his face made her heart drop.
His features were screwed up in a mix anger and frustration and maybe even a hint hatred - though not at her, she knew him well enough to know that. His eyes, though, were haunting. They were green and dull and so, so sad.
"You're leaving, Hermione," he told her through clenched teeth. "We're not going to lose you to this damn war, we're not going to lose you to fucking Voldemort-"
"HARRY, NO!"
Ron had shot up from the bunk he was confined to and stared at Harry in horror.
Then there was a chorus of snaps from outside and the three of them drew their wands, pointing them at the slightly swaying flap of the entrance. They could hear voices outside, yelling at them.
"Come out of the tent, you fuckers," ordered one of the voices.
"Drop your wands and walk out with your hands above your head-"
"Don't even think of Disapperating. We've set charms against it - there's no way you're getting out."
Hermione felt unnaturally calm; she watched with a detached interest as Harry shoved his hand into the pouch around his neck and pulled out his invisibility cloak. The familiar cloth called to her and she yearned to duck beneath it and run her fingers across its patterned fabric.
"Hermione," he said, turning to her hastily. "Hermione, put this on." He forced her little bag into her hand.
"I can't let you-"
"COME OUT NOW, OR WE'LL COME IN."
Harry grabbed Hermione's head and pressed a kiss onto her forehead before thrusting the invisibility cloak into her arms. She held it in wonder as Ron lurched from the bed and took a few unsteady steps towards her to gather her in his arms and kiss her fiercely on the lips. She nearly dropped the cloak in her arms with surprise but he took it from her, and with one last look from both he and Harry, threw it over her head.
"Take our wands and place them next to the first tree you see when you exit the tent. Hide them beneath some leaves, then run." Harry and Ron held out their wands for Hermione to take with shaking fingers.
"We'll distract them - you get away from here, as far away as you can. When this is all over, we'll find you, we'll be together again, all of us, I promise-" Ron spoke to the empty air in front of him that was Hermione.
She watched in dawning horror as they turned from her and put their arms high in the air and made for the tent entrance. She couldn't let them go, she had to do something-
She hurried behind them and separated her wands from theirs before raising it and sending a hex - right at the side of Harry's face. He fell back and cried out as his face bubbled and blistered. Ron held him up, sagging with both his wound and Harry's weight.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to them. "They won't recognize you now-"
"Go," hissed Ron. He hauled Harry out of the tent.
Hermione took a shuddering breath and followed them out.
The tent stood surrounded by four cloaked men, poised stiffly with their wands drawn. They seemed to relax when Ron came out practically carrying the disfigured boy that was Harry and they lowered their wands to smirk at each other.
"What's this?" One asked, stepping forward to inspect Harry. "Beat him up, did you, ginger?"
Ron nodded his head - Hermione could see the sweat on his brow, strands of his hair stuck on his face. He was quivering with strain.
Hermione slipped past the man and, with a quiet spell, muffled the sound of her footsteps. She couldn't believe they had gotten past her wards. How had they know where they were?
She reached the first tree and crouched to hide the boy's wands, looking up constantly to assess the group of men. She had to do something. She had to - to what?
She raised her wand and crept up behind the group.
"Protego," she whispered, and a gleam of light emitted from her wand before throwing itself in front of Harry and Ron.
The men shouted in surprise and turned around, searching for the caster-
"Stupefy!" she cried, pointing at the man closest to her.
He fell to the ground and she jumped back as a curse was aimed in her general direction.
"Confundus!" The man closest to the boys dropped his wand and looked around dazedly. The man next to him pointed at Hermione and screamed "Avada Kedarva!" and she heard Ron's cry but she dropped to the ground and rolled away, the cloak falling off her shoulders and snatching on the ground as she thrust her wand at the man and attempted to stun him -
She rolled right into the legs of the last man and it knocked the air from her lungs and before she could point her wand at him he had grabbed her by the neck and hoisted her off the ground and into the air so that she was barely able to stand on her toes. His cloak had fallen back and in the moonlight his silvery hair gleamed and his face was a washed out sneer and their eyes locked and she felt her blood run cold -
"Malfoy," Hermione choked out, fingers digging into his arms, struggling to breathe.
Draco fucking Malfoy.
"Granger," he snarled. He set her on her feet
Behind her, she could hear the man who had tried to kill her rising from the ground, recovered from her poorly cast spell.
"You bitch," he growled. She could hear him staggering towards them on unsteady feet but Draco still held her throat, keeping her still. "You'll pay for that-"
The was a flash of red and Hermione was knocked to the ground as Malfoy stunned the man and grabbed the invisibility cloak from the ground.
"Hermione!" Ron was trying to get past the shield she had conjured around them - Harry was summoning his wand but it couldn't break through the glowing blue ward.
Malfoy grabbed Hermione again, spinning her around to face Harry and Ron, and pressed his wand against her throat. Crushed against his chest, she could feel his heart beating wildly.
"Don't bother coming after me, Potter," he warned, because somehow he could tell the mutilated boy was Harry. Perhaps it was because it was obvious that the only person Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley would be traveling with. Hermione didn't care how he knew. She just wished should could reach her wand, but Malfoy had wrestled it from her and tucked it away. His hot breath tickled her ear. Hermione struggled against him, trying to kick him away and clawing at the arms that restricted her. "Don't worry about your little Mudblood - she'll come to no harm…" he pressed the tip of his wand forcefully against her neck, "If she behaves."
"LET HER GO, YOU BASTARD-"
Malfoy tutted at Ron. Hermione could feel her little bag scratch the skin of her waist - she had slipped it under her shirt and it was hidden from view. She was sure Malfoy could feel it too - his hand snaked beneath her shirt and grabbed the purse, warm fingers brushing her skin, before yanking it violently away from her body. Hermione cried out as the strap broke against her skin and he shoved it in his cloak.
He flicked away the shield that bound the boys. They spilled forwards and scrambled for the wands.
Then, with a painful grip across her shoulders, Malfoy turned on the spot, and her vision colored black.
Author's note: And so begins my first ever Hermione/Draco story. I really hope I can get the characterization down. They're all such intense characters... Well, let's just see how this goes then. Tell me if anything with the characters is off - like I said, I've never written, and I'm a little worried they'll be OC. Then again, the pairing of Hermione and Draco is OC as it is, so maybe it's okay if their personalities meander.
Drop me a comment and tell me what you think of it so far. Don't worry, this story is far from being over. Besides, I'd love to read some feedback.
Have a fantastic week, lovelies.