The War had not spared the Gryffindor common room.

The night was cold, and harsh winds blew through the blasted windows. The heavy maroon drapes danced wildly, and the shards of glass still hanging on by sinewy threads to the burnt panes cackled in song.

It was a lonely, heartbreaking sound, even worse because she still remembered how it used to be. She remembered when not finishing that night's chapter because Fred and George were marketing their products was the worst night ever. She remembered looking over Harry's essays, wondering how he could have gotten the facts all wrong. She remembered, vaguely, pounding an age-worn volume she'd gotten out of the library for a bit of light reading onto that very table.

Hermione looked out at the stars, her fingers tracing the scars and stains on the sofa. She closed her eyes, so she couldn't feel the tears.

He couldn't sleep either.

How do you move on, when in your heart you begin to understand, there is no going back? His father, once convinced that his son and sole heir was truly alive, stumbled around like a drunkard, a lost look in his eyes. Draco knew that there was no turning back for his father now. The years entrenched in the service of the Dark Lord would hold him forever, and even when his master was gone, Lucius would continue reaching.

And as for his mother, he knew that there was a chance she might be acquitted for what she did for Potter. But after he saw her to her room that night he noticed there were new lines around her face. She was still fearsomely beautiful in his eyes, but the beauty was raw now, and painful. He knew she would forever be haunted by what she and her family had done.

What about him? What about him? Draco sank into the dark recesses of the sofa and watched as familiar green lights strewed themselves across the ceiling and over the walls. In years past they had been comforting. But now they were just sinister- and lonely.

She saw him coming down towards her as she sat by the Lake.

She figured he didn't see her, because that must be the only reason he came towards her, a Mudblood. She swallowed tears back as she realized the prejudice would never be gone. Voldemort had died, but beliefs had not. She knew that their victory was temporary, that there was a long fight still before the world could truly be at peace.

Hermione Granger didn't know everything.

He saw her sitting by the Lake as he walked out.

The night's biting, sharp weather was a cool complement to his feelings. He thought the wind would understand the way his heart felt. He hardly knew where he stood, so he sat, and the crunch of pebbles made her look at him.

"I guess I've been caught," she whispered. The look on her face wasn't scared, but set: as if she had been expecting him, or something like him, to appear.

"What do you mean, Granger?"

"You can kill me now," she whispered again. "Harry and Ron know there are still some Death Eaters roaming around free. They'll never know who did it." She cried now. "It's all so inane, isn't it? A death after the War? No matter, no difference."

"You're speaking in riddles, Granger. Huh. And I thought you were smart." All this to disguise his heart pounding because it felt, for a minute, that she felt the same way he did. But why? Her side had won, she had won.

As if reading his mind, she continued on, rather brokenly. "We set out to save the Wizarding World. And it is saved. It is saved," she repeated, looking at the stars, and then back to the castle, which stood imperiously over their shoulders. "But not for me." Tears streamed freely down her face, and she wondered why she was telling Draco Malfoy all this. She supposed that if he ever had a change of heart after her murder, he could write her eulogy. Her last words.

"You won, though."

"Won what? Won a kiss from the boy I thought I was in love with for seven years?" she laughed. Draco, despite his befuddlement and broken feelings, wondered who the boy was (or rather, which boy it was, said a snide Slytherin voice in his head). But Hermione was not reading his mind now. She was plunging on. If this were indeed her last words, she wanted to make them count. "Don't tell me we won the War."

"But you did. You killed the Dark Lord." He couldn't say his name. Not even when he was dead.

"Harry did. But now what? How do we live? What do we live for, when so many have died, and so many will die after? It's an endless war."

"You live for the people you love," he said. His fierceness surprised both of them, and for a while she stopped sniffing. He paused, unsure of how to go on, because he'd never had an audience to listen to his thoughts, just his commands. "You live for the- the boy you kissed."

"That's the point, though. During the War, we thought, what the hell, we're going to die anyway, let's just snog and have fun while we can," she said, sounding strangely nonchalant about it. "But what about after, when we've both survived but others haven't? Our lives are different now. People don't get that. People will say, he was your childhood sweetheart, you should marry him and live happily ever after. It will be breaking news, the best headline anyone's seen in a while. It is expected of you, and you, you should be happy," and now she started crying again. "But I'm not. I don't mean to be unhappy, but I am.

'There is just so much, you know? I've changed in a lot in some ways, and I'm sure he has too. We can't just continue on the same page anymore. It's a whole different book, and a whole different ending."

"I get what you mean," Draco replied. She took a sharp intake of breath, as in shock, then continued crying, now into her hands, so all he could see was a disarray of unruly brown hair strewn over her shoulders and arms. He leaned back on his forearms and stared at the stars before speaking. "Life isn't so straightforward as it used to be, is it? We've all made mistakes. We've seen things and done things that we never expected of ourselves, or of other people. Life isn't the one-sided tapestry you thought it was when you were eleven. It's a whole castle of tapestries, and you don't know which one you're in, or should be in, anymore."

"Or if you should move because there isn't space for you any longer," she whispered, raising her head and looking at him.

It wasn't as if he suddenly found her beautiful or anything. The snide Slytherin voice in his head said her freckles would suit the Weasley clan perfectly, and her eyes would look good on a little redhead. Still, the late hour and the fact that she seemed to understand him completely addled his brain, and before he knew it he was pulling her towards him and kissing her.

It wasn't long, and it certainly wasn't magical.

It was a cure, of sorts, because when it was over they were themselves again. He was horrified he'd kissed a Mudblood, and she was aghast at what would happen if Harry or Ron (or Merlin forbid, both of them) found out what she'd done tonight, on the very day of the victory. "I…" she began, looking at her hands.

Draco wondered if he could surreptitiously wipe his mouth, then figured it was probably ungentlemanly to do it in a lady's presence, even if said lady was a Mudblood. So he stood up and brushed dirt off his robes. "I should go," he said. And if he wanted to tell her to go, too, because like she'd said there were stray Death Eaters around, he didn't say anything as he left and began the stride back up to the castle.

"Malfoy, wait," she called after him, scrambling up and half-running after him. He paused, but didn't look back.

"I want you to know," she whispered, and their close proximity made him remember the kiss in a totally different way, "that I am not your heroine. But that doesn't mean you can't be your own hero."

"I could say the same for you," he answered, without looking at her. Then he strode off, too quickly for her to reply.

nanowrimo (for the kind reviewer who asked, it's voluntary torture that happens during the month of november every year where people who like to write on occasion decide to spurn out a 50 000-words-or-more novel within 30 days*) is over in 4 days and instead i am going on a dramione writing spree. maybe i should write dramione next year instead of being ambitious and plunging into young adult fic.

i think this is the longest oneshot i've ever written! i haven't been paying much attention to hermione's and draco's characters in the books though and have been subject to lots of influence from other fanfics and of course the movies, so i tried to pay more attention here and i hope my writing doesn't come off OOC. and, of course, the kiss is mandatory because even though i fully support bittersweet endings as a representation of real life, i am still a hopeless romantic. you can imagine or, even better, write up an alternate ending if you wish. let me know.

* so i haven't been very just. www. nanowrimo. org