A/N: Just a short little piece. My first DHr. Please read and give a few thoughts at the end. I'm thinking of making this a prelude to a longer piece, but I'm giving you a preview of the plot bunny, so if you'd like to see more, please let me know.

Much love to my readers, followers and reviewers,

-Elvee

Granger had always been smart, too fucking smart for those idiots. Everyone knew without her Potter would have been known as the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-Eleven. Up until his sixth year, he'd been a bother, a gnat buzzing in her ear. He'd never had the disturbing experience of being the object of all that single minded thought. Draco had seen her watching him and it unnerved him. He felt her eyes on him everywhere: in the Great Hall, in Potions, in the library, at night on prefect patrol, everywhere.

He managed to keep his feelings of paranoia under control until his father's owl. The latest letter from his Father gave the date he was going to be given the Dark Mark. He was terrified of taking the Mark and terrified of anyone finding out he didn't want it. Even as he sought out a place to cry alone, she watched him. He didn't have a moment's peace. No shelter from the watchful eyes of the sons of Death Eaters in his own house, no hiding from Granger's penetrating gaze, no choice but to face the knowing stares of Professor Snape.

He was close to his breaking point when she finally made her move. Even now, it haunted his dreams.

In this dream his breath came in pants and his eyes darted like hunted prey. She simply materialized out of the shadows, just like she had that night. He felt her presence behind him like a tangible thing. He froze.

In the eye of his dream he could see nothing but her lips, pink and perfect nearly touching his ear. She whispered, "You don't have to do this, Draco." Her voice was temptation and salvation.

"What do you know about it, Mudblood?" His voice was nervous and accusatory. He couldn't see his own face. He couldn't see her standing behind him. He could only feel her presence. Draco could only see her pink little lips, so smooth and kissable. Those lips pulled into a soft smile.

Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips before whispering, "Don't let them make you something you're not." Was her voice this heartbreakingly kind when she'd actually said those words to him a year ago?

Draco laughed in his dream, the hollow laugh of a young man on the fringe of his sanity, "And do what? Abandon my family? To help a Mudblood, Potty and the Weasel?" He sneered because she was ripping his armor away with those kind words and he was sure he couldn't go another day without it.

"Fuck Harry. Fuck your parents. You're not that man. Don't let them tell you who you are." Watching her perfect lips wrap around the swear words was just as perversely sensuous as it had been that night. Watching those lips say 'fuck' was like being dipped in warm honey, like being wrapped in satin sheets, like feeling her breath on his neck, a moment before she kissed it. He shivered from the sheer carnality of watching that one word on her lips.

He tried to reply in his dream, just as he tried to reply that night and found no words. His armor was gone. He was stripped naked and afraid under the words of this slip of a girl and her lips. A silent tear slipped down his cheek as he stood perfectly still, barely daring to breathe. If he moved, he knew she'd melt into the darkness and he'd be alone.

Her perfect little lips fell into a floppy bow of a frown, whispering,"Please don't die. Save yourself." He could feel every cell in his body reaching out to her, to the heat of her standing right there in the dark behind him. This time when she spoke he could feel her breath on his ear, "Run, Draco. Run."

A chill dashed down his spine like ice water. In his dreamscape he jerked around and found nothing but shadows and the endless stone corridors of Hogwarts, yawning into infinite blackness. She was gone.

ooOOOoo

Draco clawed his way back out of the dream to consciousness. Prying his eyes open was battle of brainpower over exhaustion; one he was currently losing. His body slowly fed him information. Clean, smooth sheets covered in clammy sweat. The smell of blood replenishing potion and burned flesh. The hushed whisper of people. The rustle of paper. The uncomfortable pull of muscle and bone as his body knit itself back together.

He groaned.

With one last effort he forced his eyes open. The light almost blinded him. He could only make out the vague outline of a person hovering over him.

The outline shouted, "He's awake! Get the Healer!" The door slammed with a bang.

Draco struggled to focus. Dark sloppy hair. He squinted. Glasses? His brain fought back the haze of potions. Potter? With an unexpected savagery, Draco blindly grabbed a handful of shirt and yanked hard to bring him close enough to be in focus. Potter pried at his fingers, but Draco just latched on tighter.

"Easy, Malfoy. You're safe." Panicked, Potter yelled again, "Healer!"

"Where is she?" Draco croaked. His tongue struggled over his ragged lips, imagining her mouth doing the same in his dream.

"She's fine. She's gonna be fine. You need to rest." His eyes darted away and to the left as he dragged a hand through his hair, a sure sign he was lying. Panic slithered all over his face.

Draco redoubled his grip, pulling himself into Potter's face and growled, "Don't you lie to me! Don't you do it!" Spittle peppered Potter's glasses. Draco felt something rip inside his chest as he shook him, still he clung to the fabric, shaking with the effort, searching for another lie.

Panic crumpled to worry on Potter's face. He blew out a long breath. "It's touch and go. They're still working on her."

Draco remembered stalking through the abandoned farmhouse like a god. Anger and power flooding every pore, he struck anyone that stood between them without words or mercy, ignoring the hexes and curses thrown his way. He'd killed three in his blind fury to get to her. The last Death Eater was kneeling between her bloody thighs with his pants around his ankles. A smarmy, malicious grin was on his face. He was spattered with her blood.

His eyes darted randomly around the hospital room, not seeing any of it. Realization crashed into him as increasing pain flooded his eyes. Draco's hand slid back to the bed in defeat. "I was too late." He whispered at last.

Draco had seen enough; enough death, enough blood, enough rape to know what they would do. Nobody deserved that. Nobody. The war was over. Nobody was supposed to get hurt like that any more.

The day she went missing from Grimauld Place Draco didn't wait for the Aurors to stop arguing and come up with a plan, for Weasel to get a grip, for Potter to get his shit together. As soon as he figured out they weren't going to reach her in time, he walked into the back garden, shoved through the milling Aurors, cast a dark locating spell and apparated away.

What they did to her. Gods.

Potter's anguished voice brought him back to the coppery smell of his own blood, to the impotence of lying in a hospital bed. "No! Gods! If it hadn't been for you..." Harry trailed off before getting his features back under control and forcing conviction in his voice. "She's tough. She's a fighter. She's gonna make it."

Draco's body was in the hospital. His mind was on that crumpled ruin of a girl in the basement of that farmhouse. Granger. The one with the perfect little lips. The one that begged him to save himself.

"I killed them?" Potter nodded in reply. Draco tried to give a bitter laugh, but it hurt too much. "The one in the basement?" The Death Eater covered in blood. The man he rent apart limb from limb in his mind with every breath.

A shadow flitted across Potter's face, "Dead." He hesitated, then continued with questioning disgust, "Kingsley said you..."

Draco gritted his teeth and spat, "I gave him what he deserved. No more. No less." His eyes slid shut.

Potter's eyebrows shot into his hairline, and he leaned in hissing, "You crucio'd him to death!"

He remembered raising his wand in that rank basement and screaming in primal fury, "Crucio!"

He had no idea how long he stood over the bloody Death Eater casting unforgivable after unforgivable. He did remember it took three of them to disarm him. When he came back to his senses, the filth that touched her was nothing but a pile of rags on the floor, a pile of rags with blood coming out of his eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

Oh, yes, he remembered. Draco cracked a bloodshot eye open, saying evenly, "And you wouldn't?"

Potter looked away, to partially hide a grim smirk, "You're Ron's hero, you know."

Draco coughed. It was a weak, wet sound. "I didn't do it for him. I did it for her." He didn't do it because it was the 'right' thing. 'Right' things didn't lead to happiness or comfort. They were a series of grays: do the 'right' thing by dishonoring your parents, by taking the Mark for the Order, by watching mudbloods get raped and tortured, by reporting back to an apathetic Headmaster like some sort of sick show and tell. He had the girl whose perfect little lips told him to save himself, even as she sacrificed herself. Fuck the 'right' thing.

Potter's jaw clenched and unclenched before speaking. "How did you find her?"

Draco thought about the necklace he had wrapped twice around his ankle. The one he stole from her at the Manor before his Aunt tortured her. They'd been so pleased when he'd taken his first trophy. He'd taken it for her. Just like he'd taken the Mark for her. It was hidden by the blankets now. "It's not important."

Weasel crashed into the room like a bludger, yelling, "She's awake!" Potter tore out of the room after him without a backward glance.

Draco painfully brought his legs together. The chain circling his left ankle, then one that was always hidden under his sock, rubbed against his right leg. He sighed and let his eyes drift shut.