AN: Newest story. It's been a long time since I've written anything, and my writting style has changed much since my last published work here on the sight. I have my outline for this entire fic, but I still have much writing to do on it. Please comment to let me know if you like the way it's progressing. Your reviews do so inspire me to write quicker, and I generally take your ideas into consideration.
Now onto the story. This chapter begins in the middle of something, which you may find odd, but don't fret, all of the situation will be explained in the next chapter. Such is the only problem with having to upload and then wait, you can't really read them all in one sitting. So be patient with me. I'll try to have the following chapter up within the next week.
Pairing wise, it's a Dramione fic.
Rating: M, for mature situations, language and possibly some sexual themes later in the fic. If you don't like, don't read please.
This first chapter is in Draco's POV.
Disclaimer. I do not own the characters or the world, just the plot.
Chapter 1_Come morning light
You've been walking,
You've been hiding,
And you look half dead half the time.
Monitoring you, like machines do,
You've still got it I'm just keeping an eye. - (Imogen Heap [_Headlock_])
She is winding down now; My unexpected and unwilling partner. Both physically and emotionally she is losing her edge. Rather quickly at that. It was something that I could never imagine. She had always seemed indestructible and her insatiable drive couldn't be stopped, but here and now, she was reaching an end.
If the sagging of her shoulders each time she took a breath isn't an indication, the pale green hue that her skin had taken surely was.
Her spirit must truly be in need of rest, because she's showing more weakness now that I can imagine she is normally capable of allowing to surface. Especially near yours truly.
She comes to a stop, and it doesn't even bother me that I naturally halt with her. I don't think even in a dream I would be able to imagine how easily my body reacts to her.
"Granger, we have to keep moving." I say, even though I remain motionless and by her side. I can't leave without her. She's my partner, even if neither of us chose this, we're stuck this way. I still feel rather odd at the thought that I was waiting for her. Waiting for my enemy.
Her knuckles are white around her wand, and her pupils are dilated as she turns them on me. Surprisingly, she has nothing to say. She simply pushes herself up away from the base of the tree trunk, and begins an irregular walking pace.
The coolness of the night wasn't surprising. The forbidden forest was always far too cold and damp to be comforting, but it was setting me on edge. Whoever it was that was following us would be on their way now, and the pace she was setting was disturbing.
"It won't be long now before they close in on us." I am aware that she knows this just as well as I do. I'm not sure why I say it. The words simply find their own way out of my lips. "Potter will be…"
I cannot finish my sentence, because she turns towards me, and her frustrated, weary expression drains the rest of whatever I had to say away from me. She is not speaking to me. She hasn't been since our first encounter on this night. This fact is mildly irritating. If I can find enough logic inside of me to suppress my hatred of her, then surely so can she.
It is humiliating that she finds the idea of speaking to me so repulsive. She can't even find the words to say to me at a time like this one.
We continue walking at a frustratingly slow pace. She's injured, and it's slowing us down greatly. She isn't bleeding anymore, but the effect of the wounds are taking their toll anyways. As we walk, her breathing is becoming ragged and there is no discernable pattern to her steps what-so-over. She's simply stumbling along.
All of these things noted, I still do not attempt to assist her in any way. She either couldn't bring herself to accept my help because of her pride, or her animosity of me just ran that deeply. The last time I tried to touch her, I thought she might have killed me if she hadn't been so disorientated. Not that I blame her really.
Granger and I have a very unsound relationship. It does not strike me as odd that she is resentful of me, but I am annoyed by her resistance considering the current situation all but made it mandatory.
We carry on in silence, and in pain, for an indeterminable amount of time, before she stops again. She slowly lowers herself onto the forest floor. The mist settled in around her, clinging to her warmth and she seemed to find it relaxing, because she let out a heavy, uneven breath. "Granger…" I begin, but she snaps at me before I can finish my sentence.
"I have to stop." She barks. Her voice is hoarse, and uncomfortably weak. I suspect it took a lot to admit something like this to me, but this wasn't the time for pride. "We have to get out of here, Granger." I look around, and the eeriness of the forbidden forest is as present as always. The looming shadows of the trees, and the wispy, dense fog gave the impression of it closing in on us. This feelings made me uneasy. I crouched down in front of her. "Potter will be waiting for us. If we're late, he might do something rash." I say this not because I am particularly familiar with Potters habits, but because I feel it might be the only way to keep her calm and alert. To have her thoughts on Potter could help her focus.
A strand of her hair falls into her eyes, but she makes no move to sweep it aside. She takes no notice of it as it brushes across her nose, and lips. She looks too tired to notice anything actually. The gash across her collarbone is finally scabbing over, which means that she is no longer at risk of losing too much blood, but she looks progressively weaker by the moment.
I sigh, and as the sound fans across her skin, it jars her from her oppression. She heaves herself up from the ground, and looks up at me seriously. The puffy, dark circles under her eyes, and the red tint her eyelids had taken made her look entirely unhealthy, and it was making me nervous.
Even so, it was the most impressive I've ever seen her. Unbreakable, even now, so wounded and ready to give in, she just wouldn't. She was such a strong girl. There was no one like her. Potter had truly found an amazing ally. No one really gave his followers the credit they deserved, myself included, but I realized just how unrelenting she really was.
"Not much longer now, Granger." I say, as if to comfort her, but it only results in a blistering glare from her. She must think I'm taunting her in some way, and it draws me back to present.
I'm in the forbidden forest with Hermione Granger, and for some reason I'm trying to be nice. We may both be unwilling in this, but I couldn't figure out why I was trying so hard to meet her half way. After all, she was hardly accommodating me in any way. There was no compromise in her eyes. She had been ignoring me for the large part of an hour now, yet I was trying to speak to her, worrying about her, encouraging her. Why?
With a few long strides I had caught up with her, and she looked over at me with another annoyingly intolerable expression. I found a very familiar sneer creeping it's way onto my lips, and the burn of my loathing was rekindling at alarming speed.
The girl could barely stand, yet she had the energy to waste giving me hateful glares. "Would you rather I just left you here to die?" I croaked, my throat dry with anger. Only an argument would quench my thirst. Only her mutual hatred, only her intensity matching mine would put my anger in reserve. When her eyes cut back to mine, and her shoulders stiffened I felt my heart beat rise with excitement.
"I'm fine." She managed to produce the words, but only a shade of her normal defiance was present therein. Though my purpose had been served in the long run. As we continued on, her back was straighter, and she was making a physical effort to appear less feeble.
As we walked on, she never relented her grip on her wand. The tight hold she had was almost unnerving, and in turn it caused me to be on guard. Both of us seemed to be against both the forest surrounding us, as well as each other.
We may have been temporary partners, but we certainly weren't friends, and we weren't going to help each other out any more than necessary.
As the weakness of my muscles began to take life, I realized that Granger must have been in a great deal of pain, and I couldn't help but take pity on her.
"I need a break," I groaned on a breath. While she turned towards me with a hateful glare and made a snide comment it appeared to be nothing more than hot air. She stopped immediately, her legs buckling as soon as I gave the word. She would never admit it, but she had been yearning for that break for possibly hours.
Sitting across down now, I watched Granger stand, and begin walking a circle around us, her wand drawn.
The clever witch was actually casting wards around us. Many of them, ones that I hadn't heard before.
I found this mildly impressive, and slightly annoying. "Now you're safe from all the scary monsters, Granger," I taunted out of habit, and she almost seemed to welcome it, "What spell do you have to protect you against me?"
Sitting across from me carefully she eased herself down slowly, as hiss escaped her lips, and a frown cut across her expression. "I don't need protecting from you." She said quietly right after, crossing her legs, and holding her wand in a way that it was almost directly pointed at me.
The thought made me nervous, but I was also amazed at her boldness. Even looking like death as she was, she still had the courage to be cheeky.
"You're not scared of me anymore?" I beg the question, plucking a piece of grass from the front of my robes. Granger expressed her disbelief at the action in the form of a very unlady like snort.
Looking at her, with her freckles almost hidden beneath a layer of grim and smudges of blood, she looked worse for wear. The half of her Hogwarts uniform that she was wearing was sullied and ripped, and she didn't seem to care.
Her face had taken on a default expression of completely revolted by my presence, where it stayed for the next hour. "I've never been scared of you, Malfoy." She slurred, her eyes far too droopy and disoriented to make her words threatening, "If you wanted to kill me, the opportunity has came up too many times now for you to have missed it. You may be an asshole, but you're not an immediate threat to my life." She says quietly, fighting with the urge to sleep.
She was so weary of me that it was almost insulting. With all the things going on, she still had so much doubt about me.
"Well, hopefully we'll be seeing Potter soon and we can get away from each other." I say the words, and she seemed to agree with only this one thing.
"Harry must be having such a hard time," She breaths the words like she was speaking to herself, but I snorted either way.
"I'm sure your perfect Potter is just fine."
She frowns at me, a displeased glow coloring her eyes, "He's fighting to save us all, the least you can do is cut him a break." She was chiding me like a child, and I didn't take the thought down easily. "If he doesn't win this, you and your mother will end up as servants of the dark lord. Is that what you want?" She growls, and I cut her short with a snarl of my own.
"Shut up!" I snap, my adrenaline pumping. "You don't know anything, you dumb little bitch," She seems mostly unaffected by my acidic words, her heavy lidded gaze cutting through me in an uncanny nature. Why did she always seem to know me so well?
To know when to make just the right expression to unnerve me. She let loose a yawn, and timing couldn't have been more perfect for making me angry. I felt cheeks color pink with rage. "You're a lunatic if you think I'll ever be thankful to him. If you really think I'm on your side, you're dumber than you look. Let's just get to fucking Potter so he can keep his end of the deal, and I can get away from you!" I sneer and she gave me a matching glare.
"Fine!" She shouts, her voice breaking in a way that sounded like it was painful.
Neither of us really could really sleep. I could hear her irregular breathing, and I'm sure she could hear mine. We simply closed our eyes and in unison, lulled ourselves with thoughts of being away from each other, and safe from this situation.