You Always Bring Me To Life

by ScarletDeva

[REWRITTEN] Sequel to 'Until We're Safe and Sound.' Picking up the pieces is hard. Draco Malfoy knows this well. But he's not alone in the dark.

You Always Bring Me To Life: Only Us

By: ScarletDeva

Author's Note: Blasted Draco was bugging me all about how I let Hermione tell you about what happened on that fateful day and demanding that I let him talk too. So I'm letting. *glares* Happy Dray?

Dedicated: My cosmic twin. Us Pisces, we just rock! Also, Lena you rock for telling me to dl Evanescence. Also Megs for approving the lyrics. Finally thanks to Jason for inspiring the re-writing… huge improvement!

Disclaimer: Dray is JKR's. Mione's also hers. *sniffs indignantly* As if she knows what's good for them. The song is by Evanescence, "Bring Me To Life."

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Draco Malfoy sprawls in an armchair, molten gray eyes hooded by pale eyelids, his mind and gaze on one person and one person only.  Hermione Granger, the woman who is sprawled sleeping on a large bed, covered gently by a down comforter, a silver one.  He watches her sleep, dark eyelashes fluttering slightly, soft breathing lifting and dropping her chest gently.  He watches and he remembers, and there is a lot to remember.  The story of the only two survivors of the final battle of the darkest war the wizarding kind had ever known.  The story of a young man almost lost to the dark and a young woman who held onto the light.  Oh he has so many cheesy metaphors for it but it all comes down to just one thing.  Just one person.  Hermione.

how can you see into my eyes like open doors
leading you down into my core

The story began at Hogwarts years ago.  It began with one boy.  Draco Malfoy.  A loner.  Yes the great Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, the Slytherin Prince, popular, rich and envied.  He was a loner.  He had hangers on, followers, admirers, but not one single friend.

where I've become so numb

without a soul

Even when he defected from the Dark Side, refused his father, denied the Dark Lord, he kept to himself.  That group of students-turned-warriors, they were his allies, his companions, his comrades, but never his friends.  He was willing to risk his life, it was worth nothing anyway, but not his heart, not his soul, no never that.

my spirit sleeping somewhere cold
until you find it there and lead it back home

wake me up inside

He smirked slightly, his eyes unfocused, staring back into the past, the vision of Hermione overlaid on the haziness of those dark days.  The dark days when the do-gooders of the Light Side tried their best to reach him and finally resolved to treat him as a friend anyway, ignoring his best efforts to be cold.  It didn't make him open up.  Nothing could have done that.  Not then.  But they did begin to put the roots of their lives within his.  He didn't know it then of course.

wake me up inside

call my name and save me from the dark

And then there was Hermione.  Some said he liked her even less than the rest of that selfless, heroic, utterly foolish bunch.  Some said that and they had what seemed like good reasons for it.  The two always fought, argued violently and she would stand up to him with her soft-hearted notions, her dark eyes flashing as she took on the Slytherin King.  But what some didn't know was that he respected her though he never could say it.

bid my blood to run

before I come undone

Those dark days were when his life was worthless.  No one knew that and he intended for no one to know.  That was why he fought, because he had nothing to lose and nothing to gain.  He hated Lucius and he hated his ridiculous attempts to control the world.  The Dark Lord's kind of order… it was impossible.  Order was always impossible.  Life is chaos.  Of course Draco didn't quite realize that then.

save me from the nothing I've become

now that I know what I'm without
you can't just leave me

He fought anyway.  Day after day, battle after battle, arguments on strategy and skirmishes on the training field.  He was part of something when he fought and despite his best efforts to deny it, he liked being part of something.  And there was something else…  Something he never dared realize.  He fought to match Hermione, argued to challenge her, best her, but mostly meet her.  When their wands pointed at each other, light blazing from the ends, their eyes meeting over all that, they were on the same ground.  When they shouted at each other over the meeting table, their eyes connecting with passionate fury, with set intent, they were well-matched.  They were equal.

breathe into me and make me real
bring me to life

When the last battle came, he tried so hard.  No one knew or noticed it but he tried to save everyone.  He couldn't of course.  He deflected a hex aimed at Lavender Brown and took down a Death Eater who was aiming at Weasley's back but in the end all he could do was defend himself.  And then it was over.  And they were all gone.  And all that denying didn't mean a thing, because they were all a part of him.  A part he didn't want and fought hard to repel, but a part nonetheless.  It hurt.  He couldn't take a breath as he stared over the room where they made their last stands, going out one by one like candles being blown out.  His world was suddenly plunged into a pitch black night.  And then he saw one last light.

wake me up inside
wake me up inside
call my name and save me from the dark

There was soot all over her and blood and her hair was a mess.  Her clothes were ripped and she looked wild with pain.  But, gods, she was lovely!  And bright.  And he wasn't so alone in the dark.  So he breathed in, swallowed hard, and collapsed, crumpling to the ground.  And the next thing he knew, he was in her arms.  She smelled sweet, nothing he ever knew, but it was like coming home.  The only person who ever really understood, who could ever really understand.  It was completely crazy, the faint moonlight coming through the arched windows, the smell of blood and smoke and then Hermione, the only comfort that he could find, that he could ever accept.  He has never known comfort before, or warmth.  The Malfoy Mansion is frozen solid and so are the Slytherin dungeons.  But her arms, they were like a blanket covering his chilled skin.

bid my blood to run
before I come undone

He held her too and for a moment they were one.  They were the only people in the universe only they could understand.  No one else could see what hearing those cries before one by one the fighters went down, no one else could know what that did to them.  He claimed to disdain them all, but it was like pieces of his heart were torn off and sent fluttering to the ground like broken petals.  And all he had was Hermione.  The impossible, stubborn woman who would not let him slip into the dark.  And it was enough.

It is enough.

He reaches forward, pulling the comforter up to cover her shoulder as she accidentally pushes it down, turning onto her side in her sleep.  His fingers linger, then sweep over her cheek before he lays his palm on the smooth skin, feeling her warmth, remembering the warmth she gave him on that day, soft lips dropping dry kisses on his frozen skin, sharing his sins and, in some way, wiping them clean.  And when the back-up teams walked in, they didn't matter, they were no more than background noise in a world where only the two of them spoke each other's language.  That was the end, and that was the beginning.

save me from the nothing I've become
bring me to life

A lifetime has passed since then.  Month after month of being hounded by strangers, pressed for reports the words for which they lacked… There are many hells for many people.  This one was theirs.  He wanted to run, grab her in his arms and dash like crazy for the farthest corner of the Earth, hide them in a place where the light would never go out.

frozen inside without your touch

without your love darling

only you are the life among the dead

Many would laugh at it, the Great Draco Malfoy terrified of the dark…  But he is.  The last candle burns always in the bedroom and Hermione, his only light, holds him through the dark night, like a mother would a small child.  He's scared and cold, but she never lets go and brings him into the light, back to life, when he get lost in the dark.

all this time I can't believe I couldn't see
kept in the dark but you were there in front of me

There is no normal life for them.  All they can do is live day by day.  It's all she can do to look at a bar of chocolate or see a green eyed stranger on the street.  And any dark night, it takes all he has not to curl into a ball and cry until his own light goes out.  But then she calls his name and he remembers that he's not so cold or so alone anymore.

I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems
got to open my eyes to everything
without a thought without a voice without a soul

His hand sweeps up to her brow, brushing back her tangled curls, his gaze roaming her countenance, memorizing her features for the moments he has to blink, for the night, for tomorrow.  Her eyes open, revealing a gleaming mahogany, warm and pained and he moves away his hand, dropping it on his lap.  Wordlessly, she pulls back the comforter, speaking nothing, saying everything.  He kicks off his slippers and climbs in, their bodies tangling together, her arms tight around him, his face buried in her shoulder, her hair tickling his nose.  A single candle burns on the night table as he reaches a blind hand and pulls the blanket over them, shielding them.

don't let me die here
there must be something more
bring me to life

They promised each other when they left that place that took their light, silently, wordlessly, that they'd struggle on.  But he couldn't do it without her.  So that's what it all comes down to.  She's his light.  And he's her air.  And they'll survive.