"You promised me alcohol!"
Blaise looks so offended that Hermione almost feels bad for misleading him, but then she sees Pansy smirk and it's all worth it.
"You needed the incentive. Besides, you can't skip every DA meeting," Draco shrugs, "You already missed The Sentient Cushion Disaster."
Ron reaches out an arm to Blaise, motioning for him to sit down. They're in the Room of Requirement, which in Hermione's opinion must have some sort of legilimency charm worked into the spellwork because it'd created exactly what she had in mind, specifically the shelves and shelves of books, most of which she had already planned to sneak into the dormitory later.
Blaise settles down reluctantly, looking at Harry.
"Weren't you supposed to teach this lot?" He waves a hand behind him at the assorted children now sitting on afore-mentioned cushions.
"Neville's teaching," Harry shrugs, "It leaves me more time for more important things." He kisses Draco softly on the cheek and everybody groans.
"Please, save your horrible cuteness for when you're alone," Pansy smiles despite herself, tugging her book closer to her chest, and Hermione's seized with a sudden longing.
She knows she likes girls, of course. She'd realized that when she found herself watching Parvati back in fourth year. The problem was, love was unavoidable. She had no power over who she found herself interested in, but it hadn't bothered her much. Atleast until now.
Until Pansy Parkinson showed up with her chin-length hair and dark red lipstick, representing the exact opposite of everything Hermione was.
Sometimes she wonders if she's just jealous. Her self-esteem had never been particularly inspiring, she thinks wryly, but it's not like she wants something Pansy has...she just wants Pansy herself.
And what she wants has to be just out of reach.
That would explain it.
Wishing for forbidden fruit and all that.
Hermione realizes she's been staring at said forbidden fruit while having a short mental soliloquy and she almost lets out a sigh.
It's the only problem with having large and very suppressed unrequited interests. It tends to interfere with the logic process.
Apparently now they're engaged in a heated debate and here she is, watching her friend read a book. Ron and Blaise have taken opposing sides, arms waving in wildly over-articulated gestures, and Harry and Draco are still suspended in their little bubble.
Hermione's happy for her friends, really, she is, but when she sees Harry with Draco's head in his lap, both smiling softly at each other, their mouths framing sweet nothings, she's hit with the crushing feeling that she'll never have anything like that.
Pansy's noticed her rather unapologetic staring, and her pale cheeks are turning a lovely pink. She cocks an eyebrow at Hermione, and its almost as if something in her chest seizes because oh, she's so perfect.
Logic process.
Right.
Yes.
"Nothing," Hermione says, and she almost laughs, because it's the exact opposite of that.
"Are you sure about that, darling?" Pansy's wearing that horribly Slytherin smirk, and Hermione knows that she's in over her head, but it's alright because Pansy's worth drowning for.
Harry crouches by the door, trying to be silent.
Circumstances are proving this to be rather difficult.
Across the room, Draco makes a small frustrated noise, looking closer at the object on the table, and Harry nearly trips over the doorframe.
Draco prods the metal device with his wand, observing it for reactions. Apparently the test yields positive results, because then he goes and sticks his wand into the toaster, and Harry has to run halfway across the room to yank the wand out of his boyfriend's hands before he fries himself. But before Harry can stop him, Draco inserts a book into one of the slots with almost surgical precision, pushing down the side lever to turn on the toaster. He stands back a few feet, and Harry's momentum carries him headlong into his back, still invisibility-cloaked, narrowly missing Draco's toaster project.
"Wh-where?" Draco backs away, flailing his arms at the invisible foe, and Harry just can't stifle his laughter.
Draco straightens, speaking to some point to the left of Harry. "Hilarious. Cloak off, Potter."
Harry pulls off the cloak, but then he catches a glimpse of the smoking toaster and he bursts into laughter again, leaning against the now-exasperated blonde for support. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Harry begins, but a moment later the toaster makes a violent popping noise and they both startle. The charred book is forcefully ejected, zooming across the room and hitting the door before falling flat to the floor, and then Draco's laughing too, clinging to Harry's arm to stay upright, but the weight is too much and they both trip onto the floor, landing heavily on top of each other but still shaking with laughter.
"Should I even question?" Harry pulls himself to a sitting position, leaning against the upholstered sofa that Draco had transfigured green when they had first moved into the dorm.
"It was an experiment. I just wanted to see how they worked." Draco absentmindedly twines his fingers through Harry's.
"And that somehow involved sticking your wand in it?"
"Oh, Merlin no, that makes it sound like toaster bestiality." Draco shudders at the thought.
"Hmm. If this relationship ever gets plain, I'll keep that in mind. We can spice it up with wild toaster sex."
"In my defense, I didn't know what the machine was for. This justifies cooking the book."
"Hermione'll murder you. Which book was it?"
Draco mutters something under his breath, and Harry raises an eyebrow. "Sorry, what was that?"
"Gadding with Ghouls."
Harry sniggers. "Oh no, I shouldn't make fun since Ron wiped Lockhart's memory in second year, but good riddance."
"Weasley did what? I'm not complimenting, but he seems like a genuinely nice person. Not really the type to, er," Draco motions vaguely in the air, letting his arms flop limply, "run amok abusing people of their liberties. That's your job."
"Hey!" Harry grabs a nearby cushion and half-heartedly whacks Draco over the head. "You seem happy enough when I take liberties with you," he waggles his eyebrows lewdly, an expression he had picked up from Pansy. Draco flushes, pulling his knees to his chest and covering his face with his hands, and Harry has to take a minute to wonder what he did to deserve someone so perfect. "Stop," Draco moans, "I'm supposed to make the innuendos." Harry smiles, curving his body around Draco, his nose pressed into the back of his sweater, inhaling the familiar mix of spice and citrus, feeling almost lightheaded with happiness.
Draco sighs contently, and as they sit there on the floor, comfortably tangled together, the Lockhart book smoldering against the carpet in the doorway, leaving an ashy stain that Draco will panic about tomorrow, Harry can't help but hold Draco close and hope that the war will let them keep each other.
-—
Where is she?
Hermione's breathing hard and fast, firing curse after curse at the hooded Death Eater who flings back spells faster than she can run. She doesn't know, doesn't know where to go, doesn't know where everyone else is, doesn't know if Pansy's alive, doesn't know what she's doing anymore. She acts mindlessly, muscle memory without thought, head spinning, panic shoved down because now isn't the time.
She glimpses robes lined in green and she turns, and it's her. Hermione wants to laugh and cry at the same time, because yes, she's here, and it'll be all right because together, together they can do anything. They'll survive anything.
It's wishful thinking, but when she's next to Pansy, it's hard not to feel infinite.
They're dueling side by side, but something's wrong, she can feel it in the air, and she can't help but feel small under the premonition. She feints left and fires a trip jinx, trying to get closer to Pansy.
She feels a hand clench tight around her arm and her chest constricts, she turns with a curse between her teeth but she sees who it is and she lets Pansy pull her away.
Then they're running together, their robes flapping behind them, and there's something exhilarating about it. Maybe they can just keep running. Maybe if they just run and don't look back, they could get out, get away, go somewhere, anywhere together. Hermione's barely coherent, her thoughts streaming together in meaningless spirals, but now isn't the time, she'll figure it out later, later, there has to be a later. After all, they're running. There has to be a place they're running to.
Pansy ducks into one of the alcoves along the main hallway, the stone walls crumbling but the tapestries still standing, portraits slanted or fallen, their occupants gone. Hermione wonders where they ran.
She ducks in after Pansy and sags against the cool dampness of the wall.
"Are you okay?" she asks, looking up at the other girl, and Pansy nods slightly. Something's torn her robes short at the knees, her skirt singed at the hem, shirt stained a dark red and if anything, she looks more beautiful.
Hermione aches to hold her, to wrap her arms around her, to kiss her on the forehead and keep her close but no, now's not the time.
Will it ever be the time?
This isn't her story. She doesn't have a choice, does she? This isn't about her. She's just a placeholder playing the role she was dealt.
Hermione stands back up, brushing off the fronts of her robes in a movement made a habit, taking stock of the situation. She thinks she knows how to fix this, the castle is too far gone for a stasis but maybe if each individual corridor is fortified-
"I'm sorry," Pansy says, "but I have to. I don't think I'll be able to later- "she cuts off, her voice breaking, "and if this is it, I might as well." She pulls Hermione in by the collar and before she can think, before she can try to rationalize, Pansy's kissing her, hot and rough and desperate, salty and metallic, the wall hard against her back, and Hermione arches into the touch. She threads her fingers through Pansy's hair, the sounds of the spells scorching stone just outside the tapestry they're hidden behind, and as the world goes on around them, Hermione feels like she doesn't need to run, because she's finally made it to the other side. Then Pansy pulls away, her eyes full of fractured light and unshed tears.
"I'm sorry," she chokes out, tears rolling down her dust-streaked cheeks, and Hermione tries, tries to reach out an arm and hold her back, tries to stop her from running, but then Pansy pushes away the curtain and disappears into the haze of smoke and fire before Hermione can catch her.
They're back to back, the grounds a mess of fallen bodies, the living stumbling over the dead. A curse reverberates against Draco's Protego, and Harry can feel the vibrations through his back. He reaches to his side, not daring to take his eyes off the battlefield, and the other boy's fingers wrap around his.
There's a heavy rush of air above them, and heads turn skyward. A huge shadow flits over them, blocking out the sun for a fraction of a second, then the boulder crashes to earth, wizards scattering, shield charms fracturing.
An earsplitting roar rips through the air, and Draco's fingers tighten around Harry's.
Grawp lumbers forward, another missile hefted over his shoulder. The ground cracks and shifts beneath them, spells flickering in the confusion, and Draco pulls the invisibility cloak over both their heads. They need to regroup, they need to find Death Eaters, but no one can tell friend from foe and everyone's running. Draco's grip is viselike around his wrist, and Harry's pulled into the crowd.
"Give me Harry Potter."
Voldemort's voice echoes on the grounds, cutting through the din of the surrounding battle. Harry's throat starts closing. He shouldn't be here. He should have just gone to the forest, he should have just given himself up, because in the end death's inevitable anyway - but Draco squeezes Harry's hand and he remembers what he's living for.
"Give me Harry Potter, and none shall be harmed."
They make it into the castle, the front steps crumbling and bloodstained, worn smooth from centuries of use. Harry tries to duck into a narrow corridor but pain explodes under his ribs, his head pounding. He looks down at the blood coursing from the wound, thick and red, and he registers dimly that Draco has the Death Eater disarmed and stunned. Merlin, it burns, and Harry is momentarily convinced that there's fire. He presses his hand clumsily to the opening, hoping to stem blood flow, but it leaks between his fingers, trickling down his shirtfront, running onto the Cloak lying on the floor at his feet.
It's so very red, so Gryffindor red that he wonders for a minute if he could bleed red and gold.
"You idiot," Draco hisses, his voice shaking. "Harry James Potter, you had one job, and that was to not die." They both slump against the wall, sitting on the floor, and Draco touches his wand tip to the slash mark, eyebrows knit in concentration, and the pain fades to a sting.
"Sorry," Harry waves his arm limply, "It's a bit difficult these days." Everything's suddenly very light, but Draco's here, looking like some sort of blood-covered angel, so Harry just watches him, the whole situation suddenly seeming quite detached.
Draco runs the wand up and down the opening, his movements increasingly frantic, and Harry thinks vaguely that Draco's putting him back together. Harry wants to laugh but he gets the distinct impression that his insides will fall out. The prospect is rather sobering.
"Remind me to thank you properly later," Harry mumbles, the silvery blonde of Draco's hair suddenly seeming very appealing.
He threads his fingers through his boyfriend's hair.
"Making sure your limbs don't fall off deserves a rather sizable thank you, don't you think?" Draco's shivering, and Harry wonders why. The blood flow's slowing. Is slow a good thing? He never really had time to go slow before. Harry has time now though. He has time to sit, to think, to wait for something he can feel just over the horizon.
"Potter, that horrid pink tea parlor is off limits."
Harry tries to remember the name of the lurid heart-themed shop but the words are just out of his reach. "S'okay, it's terrible."
"Come on, let's plan. The Three Broomsticks is classic. You have to agree that butterbeer would be a comfort right about now."
"Eh, not really cold anyway." The wound is slowly knitting, and Harry watches the mending skin, fascinated.
"Harry... Harry, look at me." Draco presses a kiss to his lips, his hands cradling Harry's face, his eyes overbright.
"M'fine," Harry mumbles, overcome with a wave of tiredness. He feels Draco's arms around him and he falls into an easy sleep.
He wakes up when Draco's muffling charm falls. He's wrapped in the invisibility cloak, Draco's robes tucked gently under him, an empty space where his boyfriend had been.
—
Hi.
I miss you.
A tremor passes through her hands and the quill floats gently to the floor.
Hermione wonders what's happened to herself. Before, she would have hated the lack of control, the helplessness in the gesture, but now, everything's numb.
She conjures a new quill and keeps writing.
It's been two months since you left.
Don't worry. I'll wait for you.
Hermione understands that Pansy must have been upset, but she can't help but feel a little hurt. She had thought that their friendship had meant something. Hermione had thought, at the very least, she deserved a goodbye.
Hermione remembers that day in frightening detail. She remembers the battle, the death, the fear, she remembers the tear tracks tracing Pansy's cheeks and the lostness in her eyes.
Still, she can't help but feel betrayed.
Pansy had never come back that day.
Where did you go?
Do tell. You know I can keep secrets for you.
The owl waits patiently on her desk, observing her with intelligent amber eyes.
Pansy hadn't responded to any of the letters, but none of the owls had come back.
Somehow, somewhere, she was still out there.
It wasn't like Pansy could be gone anyway. Together, they were infinite, sky and sea, stretching to oblivion and back.
Hermione folds the letter into halves, the parchment creasing unevenly under her fingertips, reaching into her book bag with one hand. She fumbles around for her wand and taps it on the owl's leg to attach the letter.
Her magic's been acting up recently, and she'd rather play it safe instead of risk using wandless. It was a shame, really. In the storybooks her parents had read to her, the witches had always done magic with a snap of their fingers, and when Hermione had first learnt, she had felt as if she had come full circle.
She sets the owl on the open windowsill and watches it spread its wings.
She stops.
Hermione looks around the room for an object with the right magical composition but comes up short, frowning at the lack of resources readily available.
She pulls the necklace from under her shirt. She hesitates, but it's all right, she can use Pansy's gift, after all, Pansy's still alive somewhere, and Hermione knows she'd pay any price to see her again. Unclasping the ends, she holds it coiled in her palm, muttering the incantation under her breath, watching the thin silver chain morph into something more substantial.
Slowly, she makes a broom, sculpting the handle and tail-feathers. She hasn't flown in years but she hopes she's gone to enough quidditch matches to understand the basics of flight.
Hermione swings one leg over the broom, the position foreign and uncomfortable, clinging to the shaft tightly with both hands.
There's no reason to stop now.
She kicks off the stone ledge and through the open window.
The broom speeds up before she can grasp her surroundings, the ground rushing up to meet her, and she jerks the broom up violently, cursing inane sports and bad ideas, the broom swinging up towards the clear sky. Her stomach is dropping and churning, the wind whistling past her ears, and she does not understand how people do this for fun, how is this in any manner fun, and oh look, there's a tree, there's a tree, there's a tree and it's coming right towards her and then it moves-oh good Merlin it's the Whomping Willow.
She tugs at the broom desperately, hoping to change its trajectory, and wait, she was supposed to follow the owl, which direction did it fly in again?
After another murmured spell, she has a trail to follow, a faint gold pulse shooting ahead of her, pulling her broom in the right direction. She lies flat to the handle and ducks under one of the Willow's outstretched branches, streaking over the grounds.
Her stomach sinks as her eyes follow the glowing thread into the Forbidden Forest.
Pansy, she has to find Pansy, Pansy's here somewhere, somewhere between sky and sea, oblivion and back.
Hermione can almost hear Pansy's voice echoing in her head.
Don't be scared, darling.
She lets the trail carry her into the forest under the canopy of leaves, leaving behind the clear, cloudless sky. The air turns damp and earthy, smelling of plants and ancient magic, the daylight filtered through the interwoven branches, fading from view the deeper Hermione flies. Soon, she's flying in the darkness, small floating orbs of light bobbing around trees with trunks as wide as the Hogwarts towers. Gooseflesh erupts on her arms, and she doesn't see any creatures in the woods, but the lack of life scares her more than anything else. She's gone in farther than she has with Hagrid, farther than the centaurs, farther than Grawp, and she's scared, the fear bone-chilling, the cold seeping into her flesh and blood.
I miss you.
Her words, Pansy's voice.
Come home, darling.
This isn't right, it sounds like Pansy but something's off, Hermione can't figure out exactly what it is, but it's too late, she's in too deep, she has to get what she came for. She's hypersensitive, overaware, her broom slowing, and the silence presses against her eardrums. She strains for any hint of sound, and a stray gust of wind brushes her neck. She shivers, her robes rustling as she pulls up her collar.
It took you long enough.
The whispers have a direction now, Hermione realizes, shivering, somewhere ahead of her. Pansy's near. Hermione remembers her with her Slytherin smile, her blood-red heels and matching lipstick, that razor-sharp look in her eyes.
Find me.
The broom slows in the air, and Hermione fights the urge to run, to leave, to be anywhere but here. The magic's pooling in the air around her, and she doesn't know if it's her own fear or something or someone else. The broom comes to a stop a few feet above the ground, and she slides off onto the forest floor. She expects dry leaves or grass, but the ground is coated in a thick, sluggish mud, and her boots sink inches into the loamy soil. She looks up, hoping to see a small piece of sky, and she freezes, her heartbeat erratic in her chest.
They're watching her.
Hundreds of yellow eyes observe her from above, so many owls that they cover entire branches.
She recognizes the one she sent from her study.
So that's where they went.
But-she told them-
Find Pansy.
Hermione's heartbeat is speeding up again, and she can hear the blood rushing in her ears, because the owls still have letters tied to their legs, so Pansy can't here, at least-not the way Hermione knows her.
What if-
I knew you'd come.
She's right behind her.
Hermione shouldn't turn around, no, that would be the worst thing to do, because curiosity killed the fucking cat, but it sounds like her, and they're so close, what if it's true? What if it's Pansy, what if they can be together, what if she has another chance?
Tendrils of cold air brush the back of her neck.
The presence gets closer, and the fear is suffocating. The what-ifs swirl in the air between them, and Hermione can feel the magic concentrated behind her, and it doesn't seem quite… human.
She turns slowly, the heels of her boots sliding in the mud, her stomach leaden and her fingers trembling.
She sees her and her throat closes up.
It's her but it isn't. It's Pansy, pale with chin-length hair, Pansy, her lips coloured black, Pansy in height and stature. But it floats inches above the floor, body spindly, skin greying, scabbed-over sockets where eyes should be.
Darling, the creature whispers, and it reaches out a hand.
Hermione's breathing fast and hard, her wand shaking in her hand. She wets her lips, drawing in a rattling breath.
"How long since you were Kissed?"
Does it really matter, though?
It's between her and the broom. She could try to run, try to distract it to save herself, but a part of her wants to know.
If this thing is what Hermione thinks it is, then why isn't she replaying her worst memories, her greatest fears?
This is her greatest fear.
Hermione can almost imagine it. Pansy kneeling in the middle of the clearing, the dementors surrounding her, no way out, nothing left.
She knows Pansy's gone.
There's nothing left of her, nothing left of the fiercely loyal Slytherin with the razor-sharp wit, nothing left of the woman she loved.
I've missed you.
It leans in, and Hermione's drawn inexorably towards it, a planet pulled into orbit, and she knows what's going to happen. Could it really that bad?
Harry had said it was quicker and easier than falling asleep.
She closes her eyes.
There's something bright between the trees, the light shining through her eyelids, a silvery shape making its way towards her.
She sees the patronus, and she wants to cry.
It's an otter. Just like her's.
The magical signature is faint, the spell cast months ago, but Hermione can feel the remnants of Pansy in the trace of the charm before her.
Her movements slow, as if underwater, she reaches out, and the patronus nuzzles her hand. There's a flash of light and the brief sensation of falling, then her knees touch grass, the sky propane blue above her. The Forest is a line in the distance but the patronus is still here, fading fast in the harsh sunlight. She's sitting by the lake, the water lapping against pebbles, forming small ripples on the glassy surface, and she sits up quickly. Hermione curls her body around the patronus, trying to keep the small piece of starlight, but the heat beneath her fingertips grows faint, dissipating, leaving her alone at the edge of the lake.
I'll miss you.
She's gone.
Hermione starts shaking, rasping sobs racking her body, because she knows she could run, run between sky and sea, to oblivion and back, and she'd never find Pansy again.
In the clearing in the forest, where the trees grow overarching and the soil has never known sunlight, the charm breaks, the necklace falling to the forest floor.
—
He looks down.
The ground's thousands of feet below, almost lost in the hazy fog, and everything's a monochrome grey. It gives him a strange sense of satisfaction.
Harry remembers that when he had first stepped onto the quidditch pitch, he had looked at the hoops high above and thought of them as unreachable, gateways in the sky. Now he sits, the metal hard under his legs, and he looks into the abyss below.
"Cold," Draco says, tapping Harry's thigh with two fingers.
"Cold," he says more insistently, and Harry's too deep in the numbness to hurt anymore. He casts a warming charm, pulling Draco's cloak tighter around his shoulders. Their legs are tangled together, hands entertwined, but it's not real, none of it's real, because Draco isn't here.
Something had happened in the forest that day. Something had happened, but Harry would never know, something had happened, and now Draco was gone, just his body left with none of his mind, and Harry's just so tired of hurting. It's either the pain or the numbness now, but he can't let go.
Draco's all he ever had, everything he lived for, everything he died for, and now Draco's gone too.
Harry doesn't even know if he's here anymore, if he's even real. After all, reality's just the boundaries between thoughts and actions, and up here in the clouds, high enough to escape the weight of the world on him, Harry can't feel anything.
He feels as if he's having a one-sided conversation, or calling into an empty room without hearing any echoes. Draco's next to him, his head on Harry's shoulder, but Harry doesn't know how to fix everything, how to make Draco alright, because he can't search the world for a solution if his world has shrunk just to the two of them, here, now.
He doesn't want to be here, he doesn't want to have to face anything now, he can't even deal with his reflection in the mirror because he sees Voldemort and Dumbledore and Sirius instead, but he has to be here for Draco. Even if Draco isn't here at all.
Draco mumbles something and clutches his arm tightly, squeezing it between both hands, and Harry presses a kiss to his temple.
He remembers back when they used to think that they could survive anything, that they were infinite. Back when they thought that even if the world ceased to exist, if reality itself fell apart, they'd be together.
But now the future they had held together lies shattered on the floor, the images in the crystal ball cracked and distorted, but Harry can't bend down to piece everything back together because if he falls he'll fall apart.
Draco's shaking again, and Harry wraps his arms around him, holding him close.
"Love you," he whispers into Draco's ear, "Love you."
He knows he'll never hear it back, that he can keep repeating the same words over and over again, hearing only the echoes of a voice and memory where Draco used to be, but Harry can't stop trying, can't stop reaching out for something that isn't there, someone who's already let go.
"Love you."
It starts to rain, the droplets falling wet and heavy, and he tilts his face to the sky. The edges blur again, reality and imagination, pain and numbness, his tears and the rain.
Draco likes the rain. He watches it, his eyes a little less empty than they were before, and Harry thinks that maybe, maybe if they just wait long enough, the rain will fill up the places where they used to have each other, piece together the parts of himself that he lost in the forest that day.