Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter Series. All rights belong to J.K. Rowling.

Blood Stains These Virgin Hands

I fought for you.

The onyx sky was streaked with wisps of emerald green. The colours were innocent in their own right, but together, they formed that which we feared most. I stood beside you as they came for us, your beautiful heather eyes filled with something I couldn't recognize. I didn't even understand what it all meant. As I caressed the fine ridges of your face, my mind had no room for anything else.

I remember the way you ripped your hand from mine. I wouldn't have noticed the movement had it not been for the coolness that permeated my exposed skin. Ice crawled and burrowed; claiming me for it's own as the words left your mouth. I will never forget that moment.

Everything was suspended. Time congealed around us, capturing us in its hold.

"Go,"

You could never understand how much those words cut at my heart. The ice slithered in, trapping me. Is this what people say about foreboding? Is this what they are talking about when they say that to be loved is to be destroyed? Because I felt destroyed.

I still do.

I prayed for you.

Tongues of fire leapt and frolicked, bequeathing their heat upon me for one last, bittersweet moment. When your lips met mine, I could feel what was left of me escape and solidify between our melded bodies. Like a dementor, you sucked out my soul, taking it for yourself.

"Go, Hermione. Leave now, and never return to this place,"

I didn't know what to think. Did you not want me? Images of us flashed through my mind; laughing, kissing, loving. Did you ever truly love me? Say yes. God, just please say yes. Deny me now and life is nothing. Nothing without you.

I was dazed, so struck by your presence that the violent tremors rocking your house felt like gentle waves. But waves crash, something I have learned all too well. My eyes shut tightly for a brief second, absorbing everything. You. Me. This, whatever it was. The rolling surf transformed into giant tidal waves, eclipsing me. Suddenly, for no reason at all, my heart felt like bronze in my chest. Heavy and impenetrable. I opened my eyes.

You were gone.

I breathed for you.

Newspaper. Magazine. Torn flyer lying on the sidewalk. Anything, anything at all, I read with feverish eyes and trembling hands. The need to see you or to hear your voice was building up inside me so fast that I could feel the pressure rising, threatening to explode. Explosions always have casualties.

Agonized. Broken. Utterly lost. You left me with nothing but firewhisky and cigarettes. Every day was a waking dream. Every night was a living nightmare. Why did you torment me so? Where were you? I didn't care what you did, how you did it, who you killed. All I cared about was you.

You left me all the same.

I screamed for you.

Lightbulb eyes and luminescent skin. Broken innocence scarred by evil. Black and seeping, was it that which tainted you? No. To me, you would always be pure. No matter what it cost me.

The article was small and unremarkable. Just a square of paper in the corner of page three. 'Malfoy Heir Turned Traitor, Murdered By His Own Kind'. How is it possible for evil to live in something so tiny, so unremarkable? I did not need to read the small black letters again to believe it. To believe that you were gone.

I remember shredding the article in to tiny strips. I did not want to save it and keep it in a memory album or hope chest. I never wanted to see it again. I wanted nothing more than to forget you. Call me weak. Call me selfish. Even you who had been through so much hardship, you could never understand what it felt like when I lost you.

Shattered heart. Pain, so very potent. Your aunt's Cruciatus curse was like lounging in a softly feathered bed compared to this pain. This was the utter destruction of everything I ever loved.

Why, why, why did I have to love you? Every second of every day, you were in my thoughts and my dreams. So much has been forfeited, and still there is no escape. If you ever loved me, you would have freed me from this horrific excuse for a life. You would have let me live without this constant aching, biting, oh so painful pressure.

Leave me alone. Go! You once said the same thing to me. You told me to go and never return. I did not know then that you were saving my life. That fact will never scrub away the memory of the way I fractured in front of your eyes as those words left your lips. Your beautiful, beautiful lips. Fire. Ice. A burning so razor-sharp that it chilled me to the very bone.

You see, when you died, I regained that which you had stolen from me. But it was no longer the same. It was no longer white and pure and whole. Black, charred and ruined is what I have become. In taking yourself from me, you broke the very last thing I had.

My soul.

I live for you.

The girl behind the glass stares at me. I look at her, and I think I have never seen anything so sad in my life. I can tell by the rich colour in her dark eyes and the sweet curve of her lips, that in a different time and a better place, she was beautiful.

She looks up, and her scorching eyes meet my own. I am shaken to the very core. There is nothing left in those eyes. They are empty of everything and anything; happiness or sadness, love or pain. I turn away, for to look at something so desolate any longer will surely destroy me.

I see her reach into her purse and extract a small bag. She pours out the contents: foundation, concealer, blush, eyeshadow, mascara, eyeliner, and a tube of bright red lipstick. It is with dread that I watch her meticulously apply a thick layer of the make-up, covering her entire face. I cannot tear my eyes away from her stricken expression as tears sluice down her cheeks, ruining the freshly applied product.

And with shocking suddenness, I understand. Despite the layers and layers the girl behind the glass buries herself beneath, I know that it will never be enough. You must simply take one glance at her face. The emptiness in her eyes and the harshness of her lips expose the pain that she tries so hard to hide. There is not enough make-up in the entire world to conceal this blind, white-hot agony.

Nonetheless, I pray for such miracles every day. Every day since you. But I know that my energy is wasted, because praying for impossibility is the most futile of all things.

If such pain could be erased by a pop of blush and a slick of lipstick, the girl behind that mercury-coated glass would not reveal the emptiness of her soul through her heavily shuttered eyes. People who see her would not turn away and make a swift escape when faced with her all-encompassing grief. She would not cry, cry, cry and never be able to stop.

That girl in the mirror

Would not

Be

Me.

FIN

A/N This one-shot was written for DearDarkDestiny's 'Can You Write a Dramione?' Challenge. The prompt was #11: Pair is madly in love, one dies, and the other falls apart.