In Love and Loss
Disclaimer: You know the drill. The characters aren't mine.
Summary: "Hermione. There is no way we'll survive this war. We ensured our deaths when we fell in love," you smile bitterly, looking like a true Malfoy, "and we'll die no matter what. We've got to kill each other. There is no other way."
A/N: this is just a one-shot that came to me. It's very short, so please do tell me what you think!
It was never supposed to be this way.
You were never supposed to look in my direction. You were never supposed to feel anything but the deepest contempt for me. I don't know how you changed or why you changed or why you're even here today standing next to me…one arm firmly encircling my waist and telling me that it will be okay.
It won't be okay. You know it won't. "Draco," I begin, softly, gently, and then remember that this is the end and I will never see you again… "Malfoy," I swallow. "Malfoy."
"Granger," you respond. Your voice is quiet. There is no malice. There hasn't been any malice for eight months. Eight months of our seventh year. And now Hogwarts isn't even Hogwarts anymore; it's a battleground and most of its students lay beneath the ground, dirt filling their nostrils.
You let go of me then and walk in the other direction. I try not to watch you. I try to remember all the things I hate about you. It's not hard. There are so many things…your disdain for nearly everybody, your pessimistic attitude, the way you hate my friends and the way you're so harsh when you're angry.
But it's not like that anymore. I can't erase the last eight months. I can't erase the way your hands caress me in the least sexual of manners… the way you're so different from all the other boys, the way you understand feelings and emotions and everything besides sex. Oh, even the sex. I can't erase the way your toes curl when you writhe in pleasure and I can't erase the storm that's nearly always brewing in your eyes.
I can't erase the fact that I love you.
My voice cracks; I can't help it. You turn around. "You have to let go," you say. "You have to let go."
I can't let go. I can't. There is no way that I can will myself to forget these last eight months from a simple Arithmancy project and hundreds of arguments to a full-fledged relationship. I don't even know exactly when it started but there was that time when we argued… that I didn't feel anger. That my heart beat increased because I was so infatuated by you and I wanted more than anything to know how your lips felt against mine.
And then when I launched into what I thought was a well-thought-out lecture on S.P.E.W. you shut me up. But not in the way that Harry or Ron might've…in your own way. In that way where your lips crash against mine so hard it almost bruises and I'm almost in pain but for the most part there's an unbelievable feeling of calm and passion all at once.
You're by my side again. "Hermione," you whisper. "Hermione. We're going to die. We have to do this."
"I can't do this!" I break away from you. I can't stop the tears anymore and suddenly I'm weeping like there is no tomorrow. But that's exactly what it is. There won't be a tomorrow. Not for us.
"You can do this. You can do anything," you grin, "and you know it."
"Prat," I whisper affectionately. Everything about you, I adore. Even though I know this can't work and you'll be a Death Eater any day now. Even though I know you're everything I've fought against…and I'm everything you've fought against.
We're polar opposites. I guess they weren't kidding when they said "opposites attract". But they forgot to include that it's dangerous and deadly when they do.
Your father would kill me if he found out…and Harry and Ron would kill you. We both know we'll die anyway. And…today is the last day. Nearly everyone who once walked these halls in Hogwarts is dead. Since the Death Eater invasion a week ago, I've seen a corpse daily.
I don't know how I was spared. I don't know how Ron and Harry got away…and I don't know how Ginny died or how Neville's body was in five pieces when we found him. I don't care about Susan Bones but the fact that she was only a skeleton when we found her jolts me to the core. You laughed when you heard it…about how Susan Bones was only a pile of bones. The irony, you said, was unbelievable.
That's the difference between you and me. I'm horrified, and you're amused. We know it won't work. We know we're killing each other by loving each other.
And that's why we've got to do it ourselves.
"Come on, Hermione," you coax. We're at the base of the Forbidden Forest now, no longer forbidden because Dumbledore has disenegrated into a pile of ashes, and Voldemort doesn't care about the students' safety.
I can't fathom why I had such a thought. Voldemort doesn't care, period. Sometimes when you're scared your thoughts are so bizarre you can't even understand that you're the person thinking them.
I think about Harry, and how he's somewhere in that building, preparing to kill the being that's killed so many others. I think about Ron and how he must be fretting, how scared he must be, how brave he must be. I haven't seen them in a week, since we've all tried to escape in the ways we know how… but somehow, I know they're alive. I know they aren't dead. They can't be.
I haven't seen their bodies, at least.
"I love you," I whisper, and then am promptly mortified. In our eight-month preparation of death, I've never told you that. Never.
You seem stunned for a second, and hit me with a gaze so intense I wish I could take the words back and just finish this off.
You look away for a moment, and then look back at me. "I… love you," you swallow, "as well. I love you. You hear that, Granger? I love you."
For all the things I thought I'd hear in response, this isn't one of them. I cry. I can't help it. "We can't do this, Draco…it's too hard," I sob. "It's impossible…to kill the person you love."
"No," you disagree quietly, "it definitely isn't. Maybe it's impossible if you're thinking Avada Kedavra…you've got to have a true hatred to be able to do that…but there are other ways."
Muggle ways. We've discussed this for hours at an end. It's practically all we've talked about this last week. We'll poison each other. Drink the cups at the same time. An easier way to go, for sure, much easier than being tortured at the hands of the other side.
You pull out two flasks from your robes, and a bottle of a wizard poison that I've never heard of. You claim it's supposed to be quick. Virtually painless. That's a lie and you know it. Nobody who's died of poisoning ever found it painless. The bottle is labeled messily and we can't read it. "Don't worry," you say grimly, "I know it's the right stuff."
I can smell it. It's horrible, like a mixture of muggle ammonia and rat poison. The mere stench could finish someone off…and we're about to drink three flasks full. Each. "I can't," I whisper.
"You can," you smile. "You won't be able to live without me anyhow, even if you do manage to survive."
"How are you always so cocky?" I'm serious. I don't see how you can make jokes at a time like this.
"Hermione," you cup my face with your hands, "I'm scared too. But we've got to be strong. You're Gryffindor," even now you spit the name as if it's poison (ironic, is it?). "You're brave."
I nod and even though my hands are trembling I take the bottle from you and pour it into the flasks. My fingers are still shaking as I hand it to you.
"Hermione. There is no way we'll survive this war. We ensured our deaths when we fell in love," you smile bitterly, looking like a true Malfoy, "and we'll die no matter what. We've got to kill each other. There is no other way."
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, I nod.
"Right...hey," I try my hand at the jokes, "there was a time you wished death upon me, right? Well, you're getting your wish."
You don't take that well. Your lips curve into a sneer that I haven't seen directed my way in the last six months. "That isn't funny," you say, and then all of a sudden your harsh exterior breaks and I can see the real you again. The you that's still soft and sweet, and I know you're fighting back tears as well. But you won't cry. You won't because you think that boys aren't allowed to.
With a sudden movement, you swoop down upon me and you're kissing me in a way I've never felt before. It's so different. It's final. We know it's the end. It's the last living kiss we'll ever have, and we throw all of our emotions in it so that when we pull away my lips sting. No more words are said. We know it's over.
You lift up your vial to my swollen lips and I do the same to you. On a silent count of three, at the same time, we tilt our heads back and let the fatal fluid flow down our throats.
All of a sudden I can't breathe. It's like I'm choking; it hurts so much and the poison burns as it goes down. My vision is blurring. I can barely see you anymore but I know you feel the same way. Somehow in the enveloping darkness I grope around and grasp your hand. Firmly.
And just like those countless times before, it manages to soothe me as we both slowly slip away into what we hope is a better place.