AN: This is my first sad story, so I hope you all enjoy it! The first part it based on the song "Skin (Sarabeth)" by Rascall Flatts. The story also has a few ideas from other places or authors, but mostly all mine. I do not in any way own the characters, merely the plot!

Enjoy!

She was scared to death to hear what the doctors had said. She hadn't been well since the day that she fell, and the bruises just won't go away. Between the red cells and white something's not right.

He made his way slowly down the hallway of the Hospital. The white walls were depressing and the bustling of patients and loved ones scurrying around.

He had come to see her. The girl that he loved. Who, he knew, was slowly dying from her illness.

He was scared as hell.

"You came."

He slowly opened the door to her room and saw her lying in her bed. Her skin was milky white and had a few visible bruises painted on it from what he could see. Her hair was still a mess but it somehow looked thinner. She was thinner too, she had been having a hard time keeping food down due to her medicine. The only thing that hadn't changed were her eyes. They were still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; those big beautiful hazel eyes. They still managed to shine even throughout everything. The flecks of blues and greens in her hazel eyes made me feel warm, contented, and even happy on this very, very rare occasion. Blue, green, brown, or cold grey eyes could never have that same effect on me. And when she looked up at him he wanted to break sown and cry right then; how could she still have make him feel this way?

"Of course I came, why wouldn't I?"

She had thrown me off guard with that question. Even in her weakest moments she still managed to question everything.

"I don't know, people from school told me you are having a hard time with this. I guess I just figured that you might not come. I would have understood."

"I'll admit it's hard seeing you like this, but I wouldn't not come see you. You mean more to me than that."

I watched her face, it was so thin and hallow. She was still so beautiful. I wished then that there was something that I could do for her. I was dying inside watching her die slowly.

"How are you?"

"I'm doing well. Today is a good day, I feel good." "you know you could come sit by me, or give me a hug or something. I wont break if you touch me."

She was trying to lighten the tension in the room, but it wasn't working I could take it anymore.

"Don't. No jokes."

"Don't what?"

"You don't have to pretend to be so strong. That is doesn't hurt; that you aren't afraid."

"I'm not pretending, Draco."

That was the first time she had said my name since I entered the room, and it made me melt. I wished so much I could take all the pain away.

"I don't feel weak. I won't lie, sometimes it does hurt. I'm bloody terrified, but it could all be worse."

How could she have so much Faith? Why was she consoling me? I should be the one to comfort her.

"How? What could be worse than this? Seeing you like this."

"I could already be gone. I could have something far worse than this; something fatal, I could be in more pain." "I don't want to think of this as something bad. I know my life has been full and I've done and seen so many things. I have so many wonderful memories. I don't need a reason to be angry."

The only word to describe Hermione Granger was simply 'amazing'.

"I've always envied you," I whispered to her, "more now then I did in school."

She looked up at me, her eyes questioning my own, which even in this heart wrenching state, held no emotions.

"What do you envy?" She asked me softly, slightly confused, "My illness?"

"Your faith," I answered as I looked at her face. She reached out to touch me as though to smooth the sorrow away from my face, but I caught her hand in my own and kissed the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. Her touch sent a warm electricity through my body.

"Why do you need to envy me that? I don't have the monopoly on belief, Draco." "You can have it too."

"No, a person can't have faith if he has nothing to believe in."

She frowned as she looked up at me.

"You don't have Faith in me?"

"No, Hermione, you are the one thing in this world that I do have Faith in." "But do you know how hard it was for me to come here today? To see your best friend, the girl that I have somehow in the past six years fallen in live with, lying in a hospital bed, slowly falling apart? Not knowing what will happen, and knowing that this is out of your hands."

She pulled her hand my grasp, but she never turned away from me. Instead, she reached over to her bedside table and took an old tattered book of the small table. I never took my eyes from hers, she handed me the book. My breath hitched in my throat as she drew her hands away.

It was her Bible.

She had once told me about it after we had become friends. It was her favorite book. I had never really heard of it before it was a muggle thing, but she said it was her most prized position. Her Grandmother had given it to her before she passed away.

She was giving it to me.

"I don't deserve to keep this," I whispered, searching her eyes for the reasoning behind her actions.

"No one does," she replied quietly. "That's really the point. No one can ever truly understand what happened, but I want you to have it. Maybe it will give you Faith. Even if it's only a little bit."

I searched her familiar face for signs of deceit or trickery. When I found none, I finally tore my eyes away from hers to look down at the book that lay in my hands. I reached a tentative hand up to stroke its cover, and stared at it as though I wasn't entirely sure it was really there.

"So what does this mean? Do I believe in your God now?" I asked, and my voice shook as I said it.

"No. You believe in whatever you trust not to betray your faith."

She stopped talking after her last statement to catch her breath. It took a bit to regain her strength I could tell but I knew she didn't want me to see. Then she looked up at me and I knew she was wondering about something, for her eyes were big and her brow was knitted to together. She always did this when she was confused. I had come to realize this about her.

"You love me?"

It was true, I did love her, I still do. Although I had never told her that before, because I thought she wanted to be just friends.

"If I tell you that I love you, will you hold it over my head later?"

She looked at me for a moment, tears filling her eyes before she finally answered me.

"No. Never."

"Yes."

We sat once again in a comfortable silence as she processed what I had just told her.

Five minutes had gone by.

"Draco, thank you."

I was puzzled.

"For what?"

"For visiting me, I know it's hard for you. It hard for me too, to watch you look at me the way you do. For being my best friend. For loving me."

She had silent tears running down her cheeks at this point. I wanted to hold her so badly, but I was afraid I would hurt her so I just sat there.

The next thing she said I will always remember. It made me the happiest man in the world. No one had ever told me that before and really meant it.

"I love you back."

"And that's why you cant visit me anymore."

"What!" I nearly shouted at her. Why would she tell me she loved me and then tell me not to come back and see her. With her was the only place I wanted to be. Without her I didn't make sense.

"Draco, I don't know what is going to happen to me. And I don't want you to waste your time watching me fall apart. I want you to be happy, I want you to find someone who can guarantee that they will never leave you. I want you to dance again, laugh again, cry again."

I couldn't believe what she was telling me.

"Hermione, I'm not going anywhere. you're my best friend. No one can make me happier than you do. When I'm with you I feel like I can do anything, I feel like I can change the world. I love that feeling and I know without you I will never feel this way again. I am not leaving you. Even if that means sitting here, everyday, even if you go, I will not leave. You wont go through this alone."

She was now crying openly a little, and closed her eyes for a moment to try and calm down.

"Talk to me," she whispered.

"About what?"

"Anything." "Just talk to me. Help me forget for one minute. Help me not be so afraid. I joke because if I don't it's all I think about and it drives me crazy. Help me forget, just for now."

So I talked.

That day and everyday for the next five months.

Hermione and I in those short six months laughed and cried together. We shared everything and I would hold her. She would tell me stories and read me the Bible. We shared a special bond; love. A love so deep even in that short amount of time. One so special that some people never achieve in a lifetime together.

I spent everyday with her. Just being with her. Until the day she went.

Hermione Granger was dead, and with her she took Draco Malfoy, heart and soul.