Author's Note: Nevermind the events that led up to this little one-shot. Nevermind the events that take place after this mini-fic either. In fact, the only thing you should worry about is listening to the song "Hanging Tree" as it was sung in the Hunger Games: Mockingjay before (or as) you read this. Done as a Facebook challenge.
At the bottom of the page, there is a little box that allows you to type a comment and tell me what you think. I'd be interested in your thoughts. Thank you!
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It had rained for three days without cessation. Mud squelched beneath Hermione's boots and her toes were numb with the cold, but she pressed onward. Graves appeared before her through the mist, one by one. Some were so old they had begun to crumble; one had been cloven in half by nature. Still another had been blasted at by some spell, obliterating the name and information of whomever it was meant to honor.
…As if the dead, whoever they were, had been deleted from existence.
It almost hit too close to home… for who was Hermione Granger? Once, she was a bookworm, filled with hope and courage, ready to bring about an era of peace by fighting side-by-side with friends and allies against a regime of evil.
She had not been that girl for many months.
Not since that day.
The flash of a silver knife sliced through her memories, pressing against the life-giving artery in her neck… the blinding pressure of pain warring against her very bones, her muscles, the cords behind her eyes, everywhere… a pair of hands, dragging her away…
Shaking the memories from the forefront of her mind, she called herself a fool. He isn't coming.
He said he would, a very small voice piped up from the back of her brain. But optimism was a rare commodity these days.
She looked ahead. The air was clogged with fog and sodden with rain. Her clothes had become heavy some time ago, slowing her progress. Finally, she came to the place where the terrain began a steady slope upward and the trees thinned out. Moonlight began to sluice onto the grass before her in long, groping fingers. The trees above shuddered with rainfall.
She stumbled over a small gravestone as she climbed, falling forward onto her hands and knees. She was so exhausted… so weary… just from trying to stay alive...
I could stay here, the thought occurred. Stay here on this ground until I die.
No.
A flash of mercurial eyes. His low voice murmured, Will you meet me?
Where? the memory of her own breathless voice queried. When?
Pushing herself back to her feet, she soldiered on, wiping her hair from her eyes and blinking away a mixture of mud, rain, and quite possibly tears, though she could not recall weeping. She had shed such a quantity of tears these many months, she was unable to tell when she was crying and when she was not anymore.
At last, the gnarled tree emerged from the mists, a lone sentinel in the storm. A corpse was hanging from one of the larger, lower boughs. A spasm passed through her heart like silk brushing unexpectedly against her skin. With horror, she recognized, They've made it a gallows.
Midnight, his voiced pressed urgently. The tree in the cemetery, three months from today. There had been a vaguely familiar emotion in his eyes that day which had taken her a moment to place. It was only after he had left – suddenly, abruptly, as he had to do – that she realized what it was.
Hope.
Having not seen it for so long, she had not recognized it.
The War was over; everyone was dead and those that were not, were next on the list. Hermione eyed the waterlogged corpse hanging from the tree as it sagged heavily.
"He's not here," she susurrated to herself. "Give up."
He might be here, that same tiny voice of hope contradicted. This voice had emerged three months ago to the day, and had very little power at first... but he had given it to her and it was quietly treasured even as it was hated for forcing her to try to survive.
She pressed on, approaching the tree from behind a mausoleum set into the side of the hill. It had been some time since she had ever felt safe enough not to be under cover whenever possible. With a perfunctory glance in every direction, she turned the corner.
He was there, under the overhang of the mausoleum roof.
His platinum hair was soaked and falling into his eyes and a smear of mud trekked his cheek, but he was there. His clothes were disheveled and his skin was nearly translucent with the wet and cold... but he was there.
Draco tensed when he saw her. Hand gripping his hawthorn wand tightly, he was poised in an offensive stance as if he meant to do battle with her. She stopped before him.
"What did I give you before we parted last?" he questioned, wand still aimed at her heart.
It was a necessary ritual in these dark times, to be sure the one you were speaking to was who you thought they were; it was easy enough to disguise oneself with potions or enchantments. All the same, the practice left a taste like ashes on Hermione's tongue.
Reaching into the neck of her coat and peeling away her wet undershirt, she pulled out a chain that held a weighty ring. It was inset with a large, green stone and emblazoned with the Malfoy family crest. She answered, "Your ring… and a promise."
Even despite the weather, she could see his eyes become visibly less hardened, the grip on his wand less severe.
It was her turn to ask a question now. She swallowed heavily. "On that same day, what did you take?"
"Three lives," he responded boldly, "and your maidenhood."
Wands lowered now, they crashed into one another's arms like waves on rocks. The lean, hardness of his body was evident through his soaked clothing and Hermione thought Draco must be freezing but it was hard to tell, for she was trembling with cold herself.
"You came," she whispered, recent fear still evident in the quavering of her voice.
"I thought you'd flee without me," he confessed in a murmur, pushing a sodden tendril of hair from her face and cupping her cheek with fingers nearly blue with cold.
Closing her eyes, she buried her face in the crook of his neck. It was all the answer she made him, but it was enough.
When she opened her eyes once more, her view was of the body hanging from the tree at the top of the hill and she recoiled. Draco's eyes darted to the macabre scene and nodded, "They've left it as a warning to others. And they chose an olive tree."
Olives were traditionally symbols of peace and victory. Of course they did, she thought. Outwardly, Hermione said nothing.
"Granger?"
Her attention snapped back to his face, pale and angular and too beautiful to be human. It was as if he were carved from marble.
"Are you ready?" he prompted, jerking his head in the direction of the forest beyond the far side of the cemetery.
She took his hand, and never looked back.