Escape

"Get your hands OFF of me!" I yelled at him objectively as I was pushing his body away.

His cold texture against my body made me shake and shiver, like a snake scaling across my skin with delicacy. I looked him in the cold grey eyes as he stared at me as though I was on the verge of eternal insanity.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked me softly, in a way that Draco Malfoy had never spoke to me before; with compassion.

"I can't be with you!" I yelled at him, "Don't you understand?"

"Why?" he breathed, pacing closer to my small light figure against the wall.

I looked up at him; the blonde haired boy that was a clear head taller than me, his affection clearly shown in his expression.

"I don't want to stay like this Malfoy. When we're together, sneaking around, pretending that we despise each other in the halls, I feel completely dead. I don't want to feel like that."

Malfoy stared blankly ahead.

"I can't be with you," I told him, "You're Draco Malfoy.a Slytherin.pure blood," I looked him up and down, staring at his pale bare chest. scaling my eyes down to his tight black pants, and then to the Slytherin robe crumpled in a heap on the floor, "I don't want to live a life being frowned on," Hermione took a moment to sigh, "frowned on by people like you're mother and father, who insist I'm a dirty muggle, people like Harry who'll never want to look at me again after he sees us. I don't want to live a life like that, against my will and in your fault."

I could tell he was thinking.he looked from side to side quickly and then hastily motioned an idea, "We can elope!" he said with a hopeful smile, "We can run away, get away from everyone, everything. We'll have our magic to protect us - you're the smartest witch in Hogwarts, we'll survive together!"

He spoke with such anticipation, I just wanted to take him in my arms and tell him I was sorry, but it would never happen. If I didn't want to spend my life in sadness, I'd have to get away from this secrecy, convince myself that Draco Malfoy was just bad news, like I once did years ago.

"Look," I said softly, placing my hands on his chest, "we're going to graduate soon, and you're going to go off and become a Death Eater. That won't work for me, you know that I don't side with evil -"

"I don't have to become a Death Eater -"

"It's your destiny," I said sadly, "I want to go and study to become more than I am now. we just can't happen."

I kissed him gently on the cheek after I surveyed his discreet reaction, taking in his emotion and filtering it through my heart. This is going to be a new start, I told myself. I can't have feelings for him anymore. I gave him a quick flash of my hazel eyes as he studied my previous words, "Goodbye Draco Malfoy."

I knew then, I had a feeling that those three words were going to be the last I was going to say to Malfoy. It wasn't intentional, though I knew I said them for a purpose.

Walking out the shallow cold dungeon, I pulled my robe on and trailed to the Gryffindor common room as Malfoy twiddled the letter in his hands, and sat with a sad clump. He read it once again, absorbing the information.

"You will soon become a Death Eater, just like your father before you," he read aloud.

With a sigh he let a tear drop onto the perfectly scripted writing, grinded up the parchment, and threw it to the rock hard ground.

*

I turned the crisp page of Hogwarts: A New Generation, a book I had just bought. There was nothing better than a new book, it always brought me excitement.

"Hermione!"

I looked up quickly at Ginny Weasley, her red hair bouncing up and down frantically as she ran closer and red freckles showing brightly. Without question I followed the worried sixth year down the stairs, from the seventh floor to the cold dungeons, where swarms of people from all different houses hogged the corridors. Some were crying, some not speaking, others had their hands over their mouths.

"Excuse me," I said exasperatedly, pushing a side the clump of Slytherins.

"It's your fault Mudblood," I heard Pansy hiss towards my way. With a worried glare I looked away from Pansy, and began clambering through the crowd, until I reached the thick metal dungeon door.

That was when I dropped my book, my fingers had become stone cold with numbness, and as a matter of fact so had my whole body. All I could hear was the thumping of my frantic heart up against my chest. Thoughts exploded in my head and feelings burst in my heart. I stood there in fright with my eyes staring painfully ahead. That moment was when I began to cry, I let all my feeling out through my tears, I couldn't help it, I didn't care who was there, I just needed to cry.

Professor Snape, with his mildly greasy black hair stood by my side, facing me as I faced the far wall. He didn't say anything, nor did he touch me.he didn't move. It was only until I looked up at him in the dark disillusioned eyes, that we spoke mentally. I gave him a sorry look, and he bowed his head slightly.It was strange. Professor Snape was a foul, bad tempered man, though what we saw before us swept our differences aside. He knew the secret; the most heartless man in Hogwarts understood this situation.

I walked over to the far wall of the stone bitter dungeon; the lamp brackets shining brightly. I held my chest high, and wept silently as I looked down at the blood written word on the hard floor. HERMIONE, it read in dark red blood. Ignoring the worried, alarmed and scattered whispers from behind, I kneeled.placing my hand carefully on the dead limp body.

I started crying like I had never cried before.well at least not in front of anyone. It was a horrible moment. I saw Harry and Ron standing behind me. Ron was so white that his freckles had disappeared, and Harry's expression was so bland that I didn't know what he was thinking. Ginny's hand was on my back as I stared down.

I held the limp hand.surveying the blood pool that was swimming in his palm. As the whispers behind me became softer, I swept my hand across his face pushing a piece of hair out of his eyes, away from a track of blood that had been trailed across his forehead. This is Malfoy; I said to myself, Draco Malfoy is dead.

Unexpectedly I felt another hand on my shoulder, it was colder, almost stale, "I know it's not your fault," said a low calm voice.

I turned and faced Professor Snape, wiping crystal tears from my cheek, why does he understand me? I thought tearfully, why him? Pansy began hissing comments tearfully from the door, and Snape turned quickly at snapped at her like a vicious dog, "Miss PARKINSON!"

Wrapping both my hands around his, I look his body up and down. His robes and shirt still crumpled on the ground, and black pants fitted closely to his slender legs. On his pale delicate chest were several deep cuts in forms of vertical, diagonal and straight H's.there was pure red blood seeping out, as if it was trying to escape the barricade of a dead body. I shuddered at the thought of piercing my skin, and stared him in the lifeless half open eyes, which were unconsciously gazing me straight my eye.

I looked at Professor Snape once more, noticing that his hand had left my back. It was just then that he let a creased piece of parchment fall from his hand, onto the stomach of Malfoy. I was aware of what it said, I knew he was to become a Death Eater, but I didn't know it would end like this.

"I'm sorry Hermione," said Harry softly, as Ginny sniffed lightly.

I nodded quietly, crying tears over the loose body.

It was now silence.

The murmurs in the corridors had deceased and all breathing was mute. It's my fault, I said in my head, my fault.it's my fault. I felt bad, so bad that words couldn't explain. It was the sudden gasp from Professor McGonagall behind me, which shot my attention towards the Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress, who had just entered.

What was I thinking? I had hurt him so badly that I had driven him to death. He had forced pain onto himself, just for the sake of me, for the sake of getting away from Voldemort, school, and his father.

After taking moments to grieve silently over the loss of a life, Dumbledore conjured up a white sheet. I noticed the light in the room become dimmer.or was I just becoming blinded with sudden depression?

"Any lasts words.?" asked Dumbledore. From the way he spoke, he obviously knew what was happening too.he never missed a beat.

Still staring into the unconscious eyes I dropped his hand from mine, staring at the slight smirk on his face, "Goodbye Draco Malfoy." I wept, "Goodbye."

I knew in a way he was evading from the pain and suffering he had to live on this earth. He was rich, handsome, and most importantly loved.but not necessarily loved by the right people.

I guess underneath all of the grief is envy. I envied him, he was gone, and away from this madness we called earth, a place we had to deal with. He had run away from the magic, darkness and the barrier of hope.

It had all changed around. It was my fault, it was his actions. I was alive, he was dead. But I was sad, and he was happy. he had escaped.