A/N: Loosely based on 'How Many Miles to Babylon' by Jennifer Johnston.

Review please.

PurelyPoison

Prologue

The only thing worth leaving behind...

"Because I am young and foolish they have not taken away my pen or my paper so I sit and I wait and I write. My future is only what you can count in hours and for you that may seem little but for me that is excruciatingly long.

All I can do is look back on the events that brought me here and all that happened in between and think of my own interpretation for what it is worth. My version will be inaccurate; after all they do say that we all see the world differently. But it is my version nonetheless and that I think counts for something.

It's my own fault I am here; I am not so foolish that I would blame somebody else. I started this and so it will end that way.

My mother is dead now but like me she may be better off so. It's been years since I cared about him, I hope that he is dead. There were moments when I almost admired him.

Now that I look back and begin to tell my story, the only glaring reality I can really get a hold on is my obvious naivety. It angers me to remember now what I was then. How could I fail to realise all that awaited me? I was born into this life but I took to it as a Wizard takes to magic. As far as I was concerned it was meant to be.

Taking the mark...I can't even begin to talk about that. Not yet anyway.

The only way I can think of telling my story is by starting at the beginning and allowing each and every painful thing to come to light as and when it happened.

I have seen death in its purest form. I have watched life flicker and fade from the eyes of everyone I loved and even those I didn't.

The Great Battle of Hogwarts...I bet that is what they are calling it now. How can a battle truly be great, when the two people it revolved around are dead? It makes me wonder but I will come to that. Maybe you already have all the answers?

I'm not sure who is left of my own kind. Death eaters I mean even though you may disagree with my choice of words. I would imagine they fell on the battle field or perhaps some are condemned to the same fate that now awaits me. I can think of worse things in this life.

I am duly grateful that they have all stayed away from me. I have the four walls of this room for company. I am expected to leave my last will and testament on these pages, decent of them to think that I have any possessions worth leaving to anyone, but all I want to do is leave behind one thing. That is my story.

For what it is worth.

But it isn't for them.

It is for you.

You...

Even now as I write these words I feel my heart ache and my hand tremble to know that you will read this, touch the pages I am writing on now, and I hope that you will understand.

I hope that you will finally know what it felt like to be on my side, to see things as I saw them. But mostly, I hope that you will continue to love me just the same with the same unwavering loyalty and trust whether I deserve it or not.

This story cannot be just about me. I must correct myself without going back through the words and scribbling all over them. Forgive me if I ramble, it is what happens when you are finally left with nothing but your memories. Even my words sound as if they have aged one hundred years.

This starts as my story but it will end as our story.

The story of how I loved you and how you came to love me.

The story of how you saved me.

And how I could not save myself.

I am sorry for that; I must be your greatest disappointment.

I have only regret now that I am here. But I will never regret loving you or allowing you to show me that there was more to this life than I had been taught to believe. You allowed me to hope for the first time and I shall always be grateful.

Bear in mind I said regret, not remorse. I cannot feel that, what would be the point in wasting pages by telling the story that mankind already knows? Life is a bitch, move on.

I will not bore you with details of my childhood or sombre, melancholic monologues of how unfair and unjust life can be. You were not expecting that I hope?

All you will get from me is realism.

The merciless bastard that is reality.

Also known as cold, hard fact.

This is not the place for dreams. Any dream that could have been is long since dead and believe it or not, I think I like it like that.

But when I speak of us...you and the pathetic creature that is me, you must allow me the leeway of emotions.

I've already said I love you; don't make me keep repeating myself. So then you must understand that, as the strongest emotion in my arsenal, it will bleed into the story somehow.

I leave you behind with the knowledge that a life together was never on the cards. We play the hand we were dealt as best we can and while my hand was particularly cruel, I always knew the ending.

And I was right.

Here I am.

I hope this reaches you my darling.

I hope that the next person to walk into this room is you so that I may press these already worn pages into your hands and plead that you will read them.

But I know you will not come to me.

I told you not to.

But then you always did have a way of surprising me.

You certainly never listened to me before.

My hope settles on these pages like dust. Nobody wants it there, it is dirty to see and gritty to feel.

I see it there and it sickens me. I still have not learned my lesson.

I'm rambling again and forgetting that I promised you a story. You already know it, I'm aware of that. I can already picture that look of derision you often gave me when I would painstakingly tell you something you already knew.

But you don't know this story from where I'm standing.

We both remember that I wasn't exactly the sharing kind.

But now I'm sharing and I don't think it is too late.

If, when you read this, you think it is too little too late. Then toss the rest of the pages on the fire. It will do you no good to read them.

But if you think you can bear to hear my truth. My untwisted and harsh truth.

Then my darling, continue.

I do not fail to see the amusement that I was never the storyteller or the writer. I always left that to far more patient minds than my own. I shall try to tell it chronologically but no doubt you will remember it perfectly and perhaps notice the inconsistencies or the lack of chronology in places.

I find it hard to remember everything. The only thing I can focus on is the feeling of the cold pen in my left hand as it presses against my fingers.

Just know that I will tell the truth. All of it no matter how deplorable it may be.

And know that I do it all for you...you whose name I find it so hard to write never mind say aloud.

You...

Hermione.

It was all for you.

This...this is all for you.

Because I am young and foolish they have not taken away my pen or my paper so I sit and I wait and I write. The last memories, of a pure blood, a murderer, a death eater, a fool, myself, Draco Malfoy".