A/N: Okay right this is my first Dramione fic post-war and it pretty much sticks to DH except obviously not the epilogue. May be typos or grammatical errors (so sorry in advance) but I have lots of revising for my exams to do and still need to update my other stories sooo yeaah... Not sure how long this multi-chapter will be plus I'm gonna make it super dark/angsty. Don't worry though I'll still throw in some cutesy aww moments and humour but seen as though I'm kinda hoping that Hermione and Draco bond over their fragile mental states and secrets it's gonna be pretty poignant. Cause I like the hate/love stuff and hot scenes I rated it T for the passion, plus the 'secrets' both have. Hope y'all like it and constructive criticism/questions are good (but like I said with my first fic- not compulsory) Anyway enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own no characters sadly, only the plot...
She was sprinting, tearing across the grounds with her heart thundering in her chest. The fluorescent flashes of green among a whole spectrum of colours reminded her of the ever present danger of death or severe injury. Bodies littered the flies and crows swooped down from overhead lured by the fresh meat. Let them pick at the carcasses, the wizards and witches weren't alive to protest. A vivid orange fireball cannons across the war zone, missing her cheek by mere inches and the hair-breadth distance allowing her to feel the sizzling heat as it charges past. She ducks following the primal instinct bred from self-preservation. The abrupt halt jarrs her battle-wearied bones and skin marred by bruises and seeping wounds. A particularly deep gash in her calf makes the young witch hiss in pain and question when exactly it had formed. The blood was congealing, thank Merlin, but she knew she'd have to treat it within the next hour to prevent infection. The fireball had hit its target and a balding man had screeched with turmoil as the flames engulfed him. Those pretty, magical flames. How she longed to dance in them; free and wild, brought to her knees by her own doing. Mocking her opponents with her courage and resistance to die at their cruel hands.
Realising that spectating whilst stationary was sure to end in imminent death she army crawls over the frigid gravel to stumble to her feet, keeping her body close to the Earth for protection. The sorrow-leaden cries and agonised screams plague the air around her. She glimpses witches and wizards alike turning on one another, faces morphed into inhuman snarls or sadistic sneers. A particularly colourful spell is cast spitting sparks at its victim causing the victim's face to melt like it's been splashed with a very temperamental concentrated acid. The spell entrances her, reminding her of the fireworks her parents would buy on Guy Fawkes Night every year. The whirling of sparks highly resembled that of a Catherine wheel and she had to bite her tongue to stop the semi-hysterical giggle rising within. She needed to leave, NOW!
The intelligent witch listened to her inner caution and sprinted towards the front doors of the crumbling castle. The Final Battle was taking its toll on the battered witch and the dismal sight of the wreck of the once-magnificent Hogwarts made her eyes itch unpleasantly with the urge to cry. She pushed the unwanted notion aside focusing on self-preservation and facts instead of the emotions riding mercilessly through her. She scans the grounds seeing all but two Death Eaters immersed in battle. She whispers a quick "Stupefy to the largest of the two. He's stunned, unaware of her presence yet the other, a greasy-haired lithe man, clearly the stunned ones comrade darts towards her yelling incoherently. She dashes to the left not feeling the brief burn of a combative charm work against her left arm due to her adrenaline fizzling in her veins.
"Expelliarmus!" She cries out, feeling a surge of pride as the man is effectively disarmed. He quickly moves past his surprise though and punches her square in the gut. The move leaves her winded and crouched over at the waist, panting and feeling increasingly vulnerable. The man- was he even really a man if he used killing curses and felt no remorse towards the lives he'd slain?- lunged towards his wand and redeemed it from her slackened grasp. Fighting the urge to retreat to the darkness unconsciousness offered, Hermione used her position to knee the remorseless bastard in a place nobody, especially not a man, wishes to be hit. Swift and savage. Huh, alliteration. The memories of libraries and safety distract her momentarily. Focus on the facts. She runs up to the grounds the cogs whirring in her pretty little head.
Fact 1- She needed to find Harry and Ron. Somehow amid the chaos of war they had become separated and she prayed to any existing deity that they were both alive and in good condition. War, she thought resignedly, was a messy thing spurred on by the duality between everyone's inner light and darkness. Poetic in a macabre way. The sound of broken glass and a feminine wail tested her morality and patience. Doubt took root in her Gryffindor indoctrinated mind. The instinct wanted her to RUN, but this time she did one crucial thing and hesitated. Fact 2- The remaining horcruxes had to be destroyed immediately. Nagini, the snake was the last one left, yet she couldn't see Voldemort through the raging crowd. The rubble made her stumble and fall to the floor unelegantly. Her skin peels off her palms as she lands and the crimson blood wells up, joining the dirt, grime and sweat coating her body. Deciding Ron and Harry would be around their nemesis Voldemort, Hermione clambers to her feet and finally spots the wailing woman. The woman's locks are grey from the ceiling plaster and terror shines in her cobalt blue eyes as she wails and begs to a hulking death eater. She;s even, Hermione observes sickeningly, kneeling at his feet. The sneer of disdain on the unfamiliar death eaters face causes a spark of anger to flare up making her discard her instinct and stal towards him. She mutters a curse at him, sure she had not been spotted but it rebounds and she has to dive away in detached astonishment. But-when, how..? It couldn't have been him who'd blocked the curse it must've been one of his wizarding allies. The man had, however, now noticed her and with a sadistic smirk he'd drawn his wand menacingly as she searched in the rubble frantically for hers.
In those panic-searing moments her heart pounded even more rapidly and she'd felt nauseatingly exhilarated by the action-filled events. What's wrong with me? Have I been so exposed to death and fear that I was now succumbing to the madness of revelling in my own impending doom? In response her blood merely boiled with anticipation and her fingers twitched at finding no wand. Her tormentor was talking to her- most probably words of mockery, self-pride or cliched villain quotes- she really couldn't care less. She nearly rolled her eyes at his rant, Merlin's beard he;s as talkative as Ron after a Chudley Cannons quidditch match. The giggle burst from her lips at the silly, rather trivial comparison, and she turned away from the man's reaction still looking for her isplaced wand. She finally saw it half-hidden under an immovable wedge of rock. Shit. Not good Hermione, this is not in the least bit inspiring her sluggish thoughts. No shit sherlock, the instinctual voice reprimanded sarcastically, if you'd have run instead of being a buffoon and taking on a brawly death eater… She rolled back on her back realising in her last few moments before the luminescent green killing curse was fully completed and before the darkness embraced her into its warm abyss-like depths was Fact 3, a typical thing for her mind to revert to before her last moments on Earth. Sadly her dwindling consciousness did not reflect on her childhood memories or on the magic and wonder, as well as the heartbreak and life lesson Ron, Harry and her Hogwarts life had shown her. No her analytical thoughts were much more directed at the mantra gallanting over and over in her head. Fact 3 was obvious to er in her painful moment of clarity- I'm going to die.
She spun through the darkness, falling down, down, down… Like Alice, sweet innocent Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole. She startles herself awake, forcing open her eyelids to sense where she is. Am I dead? Hermione questions, taking in her surroundings. It looked like a wine cellar with the wine bottles sleeping idly on dusty wooden racks. The walls were a slate grey concrete and the floor dark wooden slats. The only light came from a small rectangular window on the far left. She attempts to stand up from her chair, only to find ropes tied firmly across her torso, ankles and wrists, rendering her pretty much immobile. The little light only accentuated the scattered shadows, invoking a fear and hysteria in the trembling witch. The nightmare, she realised, was her last memory and questions buzz i her mind like aggravated bees. Where am I? What happened in the war? How did I survive the Avada Kedavra curse?
A figure strides out of the darkness. His hair looks dark blonde in the dim light but she knows it to be much lighter, and is ruffled as though his slender fingers had raked through it often in the past day. His face was pale, a corpse pallor and his silvery eyes latched onto hers. In his gaze was an instability, a wildness and unpredictability. His ever-present smirk was absent, erased by sorrow and wariness. He paced in front of her dressed in dark jeans and a black t-shirt. He immediately began pacing in front of her once he'd checked she was fully conscious and his hands, she noticed, were balled into fists. His movements were graceful even when full of tension and she couldn't help but notice the bandage peeking under his t-shirt hem when he stretched.
"Malfoy?" She croaked out, voice rough due to screaming and shouting when fighting. She licks her cracked lips with her tongue, uncertain as to her predicament. Draco Malfoy flinches at his family name.
"Draco. Call me Draco." He tells her wearily.
The war had weighed heavily on him too and as he looked at the alert witch with cinnamon orbs and bleeding wounds he sighs deeply. Her doe eyes looked so wide and innocent, and the intellect swirling in her depths as she tries to configure her situation makes him intrigued. Didn't the Mudblood realise her being alive could get him killed if the Dark Lord or his pets ever found he couldn't have just left her at the hands of Marcus Kreston- a brute known for toying with women before he killed them- no, he couldn't do that. So instead he'd thrown a crucio curse at the beastly man and gathered her unconscious form in his bloodies hands. Questioning what the fuck he was doing with the annoying know-it-all he simply loved to torment. All the way to the deserted Malfoy manor, he'd doubted his sanity. Why did he save her? Was it to distract the fog of depression which threatened to drag him down into its murky depths? Was it the way her eyelids fluttered lightly as she dreamt and the warmth she radiated as she snuggled into his body as he carries her? Was it to protect the Golden Trio's smartest member, finding the death of her intellect a shame to the wizarding community? He didn't know… He glances at her calculatingly and he stares back, refusing to back down from the stare out. Ah, how he'd missed the Gryffindor bravery. He was particularly amused by her resilience despite the smog of terror smothering the whole community.
"Fine, Draco then." She concedes softly. "Where are we? What happened?"
" I brought you to the Malfoy manor, in the wine cellar to be exact. I don't know the outcomes of the war or all the repercussions because I had to save your sorry ass from the brute you so recklessly challenged." He sneers, eyes darkening to a steely charcoal at Marcus' words to her, strangely she had looked unafraid of the spiteful venom dripping from the Dark Lord's favourite henchmen. He watches her absorb this information and pauses in his pacing to watch her.
"You have to let me go back." She states calmly. She sees his eyes widen with incredulity.
"Are you insane!? Do you have a death swish or something? I just rescued you from that hell hole, why on Earth do you want to go back?" He exclaims, voice rising gradually to a shout. She meets his frantic eyes with her calm gaze. "I need to help Harry and Ron." she murmurs, gently. "I need to help them." Draco shakes his head vehemently, completely opposed to her death.
"No. The fuck you are." He hisses, eyes burning like magnesium embers.
" You don't understand." She insists, "They need me! I need to help them stop Voldemort and his cronies. I'm not gonna let those bastards win."
"They need you, huh? Well, answer me this Granger, where were they when you needed them. I saved you, not them. Me! And I'm not gonna let you put us both at risk by going back out there." Her eyes obscure with unshed tears but this time the emotions crash over her mercilessly like waves and waves and the crystalline tears roll down her muddies, bloodies cheeks.
He sees the tears, the exquisite remnants of emotional trauma and a pang of guilt hits him. Surely not? Why should he feel guilty for her pain- his father had told him they were lesser beings, tainted by their muggle upbringings… So why did he feel sympathetic towards the impulsive young witch? What was it about her which made the urge to comfort her, to stroke her curls and relieve her pain, rise up within? He walks towards her and digs in his pocket for something. Hermione catches the shine of something metallic and with a startled gasp sees the knife as it nears her. His face is set in a cool, expressionless mask, making her wonder if he was going to kill her. But what would be the point of saving her if he was just going to kill her anyway? To exact vengeance on the boy-who-lived and the red-headed man she'd kissed passionately in the Chamber of Secrets. Surely not.
In an elegant flick of his wrists he slices the ropes binding her, then crouching down does the same to her ankles and wrists. Her heart slows to a steady tempo, immensely relieved at his compassion.
"I'm sorry." He mutters quietly as he pulls off the ropes , freeing her from the chair. "I didn't mean to make you cry." She can only gape at him in shock at the apology. Malfoy's didn't apologise; they were way too arrogant and proud to follow such ethical concepts. And yet here he was, her tormentor, looking at her with a peculiar mixture of determination and vulnerability. The mad part of her, the one who was tempted towards dancing in the flames, causes her to cares his cheek fondly. He stiffens at her touch and gives her a pointed look, curious as to what she's doing.
"You are like a teacup." She murmurs fondly.
Draco merely raises a skeptical eyebrow as if fascinated by her lilting tone and strange statement. "Because-" she continues, those chocolate hues turning dreamy as if temporarily insane "- you are beautiful yet fragile. A curious combination if you ask me." The mad girl releases the mourning boy and they simply stare at the other as if entranced. The moment is broken when Draco huffs out a sigh and stands up to get her the First Aid bag, carefully concealed behind a wine cabinet and some musty old crate. The dust motes waltz in the air between them and Hermione has a minor internal freak-out at the insane part of her, rudely shoved to the side by her usual personality. Draco returns and she sits still as he tends to her wounds.
"Won't we be discovered?" She asks him. He shakes his head slowly, a dark cloud hovering around him like a dark aura. She doesn't dare to probe deeper. Instead hashing out a sketchy plan: "Why don't we stay down here for a few days-"
"No. We must stay here longer." He interrupts, pouring a bit of vodka into a deep gash on her leg. She bites her lip to stop a whimper at the pain, shutting her eyes which are still slightly damp. "Fine, a week. Two at most. Then we do a quick recon, I tell Harry and Ron and the others where I've been and-"
"What if they are dead?" Draco questions, threading a needle in preparation for stitching the gaping wound.
"Then I find the Weasley's, Kingsley, Neville. Whoever is alive and on my side."
"And then what?" He prompts, keeping her talking through the painful procedure. A trickle of blood runs down from her lips from biting so hard and she tastes the coppery tang on her dry tongue.
"Then we need to help build up Hogwarts and deal with the repercussions of the Battle. If Voldemort has won, I'm going to seek the rebels and keep fighting, If Harry somehow stopped him, I'm going to pay my respects to the dead and help rebuild Hogwarts for what I presume is our final year." He ties up the loose thread, and moves on to the other injuries, smearing antibacterial cream and placing plasters wherevers necessary. Hermione catches sight of his dark mark, inky black and writhing upon his forearm and he watches her contemplate it silently.
"You can come with me." She finally utters. "I know you can't really be as evil as you try appear to be." He retreats, emotions flitting across his face too quick to comprehend. Until his face finally distorts into the sneer he used on her to reflect his disgust during their time at Hogwarts.
"Why-" he begins quietly, an undertone of danger thrumming each word he speaks "-would you think I'd want to join a filthy mudblood like yourself and the two douchebags who don't fucking die."
"Because you don't really believe that." She replies stubbornly, eyes flashing with righteousness.
"Salazar's tongue, are you really that stupid Granger? Of course I believe that." He denies, ignoring her hurt look.
"Look at my blood Draco! Look at it!" She shoves a cut on her wrist under an artery in his vision. "My blood is just the same as yours. We bleed the same all us muggle-borns, half-bloods and you purebloods, because we are the same. 'Death is the great equaliser.' Well so is our blood. I cannot help what family I was born into it is beyond your or anyone else's control. Or did Daddy dearest not teach you that?"
Draco looks at her blood and his prejudice dissipates like smoke in a breeze. He lifts his eyes to her feisty ones, sparking intoxicatingly. He can't help but see her as so, painfully irrevocably alive in that moment as she glares at him. He keeps quiet only showing his acceptance of her and all she used to represent with a curt nod of his head. And so they sit near one another, deep in thought and loss only moving for necessities such as food, water, bathroom breaks and to change bandages or apply serum. A comfortable quiet surrounds them as they lose themselves to the spiralling questions and memories. They dwell and mourn the dearly departed and sometime around evening when the dusky sky dims the cellar, Draco leaves to return with an armful of blankets and something clutched half-hidden behind his back. He throws them onto the wooden floor , mumbling at Hermione of how he's going to sleep downstairs for the first few days in case anyone comes looking for them. Hermione nods and throws together a pretty cosy den for the both of them. They lay down, not too close but near one another regardless soaking in the silence. Draco sits up and crosses his legs reaching for his other retrieved item. It is a bottle of Whiskey- Jack Daniels to be exact- and looks to be unopened. She sits up as well, watching non-judgmentally as he cracks open the lid and takes a long swig of the liquor.
"Please may I have some?" She questions feeling abruptly too consumed by the worrying and loss. Draco chuckles darkly at the goody-two-shoes staring longingly at his bottle. Ahe shivers unwillingly at the tempestuous sound.
"Who'd've guessed?" He teases lightly "That little Miss morals would want my liquor?" She rolls her eyes, "Oh give it up. I need something to distract me." She snatches it from him and smirks wickedly a her boldness. Tilting the bottle to her lips she gulps mouthful after mouthful of the fiery liquid. He doesn't stop her. Merely waits for her to pass it on so they can drink companionably with one another. How surreal it is to be sat in a cellar with his old arch-nemesis swigging alcohol to escape their tumultuous thoughts. The night descends and with it the eventually are lulled to sleep by the ambiance. And they lay in tranquility, both broken pawns in the chess game forever altering theirs and many other witches' and wizards' lives...