Screaming without Lungs

Outside the rain's falling down,
There's not a drop that hits me.
Scream at the sky with no sound,
is leaving my lips.
It's like I can't even feel,
After the way you touched me.
I'm not asleep, but I'm not awake,
After the way you loved me.

I can't turn this around
I keep running into walls that I can't break down.
I said I just wander around,
With my eyes wide shut because of you,
I'm a sleepwalker.

- Adam Lambert, Sleepwalker

"Get your hands off of me!"

Draco yanked Hermione's hand from his shoulder, leaving Hermione completely speechless at his actions. She struggled for words, and to her surprise, finding none. Draco opened his mouth to say something – he hadn't meant it, of course, but just like Hermione, Draco was stunned to find that he too was at a loss of words. Both of them stayed that way for a while, staring at each other, questions being asked through the silence.

One look at Hermione's hurt eyes and Draco felt a gut wrench itself. He wanted to say he didn't mean it, tell her that he loved her more than she'll ever know, but alas, he knew it was for the best. He felt a now familiar searing pain shoot through his left arm, and he knew it was time. The Death Eaters were coming, and they wanted him to open the vanishing cabinet.

Tonight was the night Hogwarts would fall.

He looked around the Head's common room, knowing that this will be the last time he would ever see it like this, and then took one last look at Hermione. He grabbed her arms, yanking her up, lifted her chin, and kissed her roughly. It wasn't long before he pulled back though. He looked into her eyes again, and he hugged her tightly. He whispered a faint, 'I love you.' He wasn't sure if she heard it, but he didn't mind. There were more pressing matters at hand.

"What ever you do tonight, Granger, do not get out of this common room. Do you understand me?"

Hermione just looked at him, she clearly didn't understand what was going on, but Draco didn't need her to.

"Don't just look at me like that, Granger! Promise me!" He forced, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her, urgency evident in both his eyes and voice.

"Draco, whatever it is you're going to do, please don't do it." Hermione begged, tears threatening to spill out of her eyes. Draco shut his eyes, and bit his lip.

"I can't do that." He said his eyes shut, fighting back the tears he knew would come. "Please don't make this harder for me than it already is."

"Dumbledore can help you, Draco." Hermione reasoned. "Whatever that is, Dumbledore… the Order can help you!"

Draco winced; the pain in his left arm was almost unbearable. Hermione noticed this and tried to reach out once again, but Draco held out his right hand, stopping her. Once the pain began to subside, he turned around, and upon reaching the portrait hole, he looked back at Hermione.

"No one can help me now, Hermione." He said, a sad smile etched on his face. "Just please stay here."

Hermione nodded. Draco let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and let go of her, making his way to the portrait hole. Once out he found Eros and Psyche, the two in the portrait, asleep in each others arms. He knew that that was what he wanted the most, falling asleep with Hermione in his arms, but he knew he'd given up all the rights to do that when he got out the Heads' dormitory.

"Protego maxima." He said, waving his wand, and once he saw that the enchantment was complete, he half-ran to the seventh floor, to the Room of Requirement.

Draco was scared; though that wasn't something he would freely admit to anyone. If by some chance he didn't do this right, he will lose everything.

He'd already lost Hermione.

Hermione. He didn't want to think about her. She was the only person who'd believed in him, but he'd let her down.

Passing thrice by the hall with the Room of Requirement, the door presented itself to him. He opened the door, and shut it fast behind him, careful not to let anyone see him. Though he found this action totally unnecessary, since everyone would know it was him anyway.

'Fuck it.' He thought, grabbing the nearest object he could find – an apple – and approached the Vanishing Cabinet. He opened it, and set the apple inside. He stopped for a while, knowing that once he closed the cabinet, it wouldn't be long before Hogwarts would fall.

He still had a chance, didn't he? To go to Dumbledore?

But then the old coot was with Potter – or so Hermione told him – out doing something presumably questionable. Draco shuddered at the thought.

Hogwarts was his home. It had been for the past six years – and how ironic it was to him, how he was going to be an instrument of the destruction of the only place he called home. Closing the cabinets' doors, Draco knew it wasn't the time to be sentimental. It was this, or his mother's head, possibly Hermione's too, if he wasn't too careful.

It wasn't fair. Having to choose between his mother and the girl he held so dear – yet time and again, the world hadn't failed to get him to notice that life was never fair. Draco stood there, in front of the cabinet, half-hoping that the plan would fail, but seconds later, the cabinet doors burst open, revealing his Aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange and a few other Death Eaters.

His aunt let out a maniacal laugh and skipped out of the Room of Requirement, the Death Eaters following her, minus the skipping.

He watched them go with only one thought on his mind.

"What have I done?"

"Hermione? Hermione! Wake up!" called an urgent voice.

Hermione eyes shot open as she let out an ear-splitting scream. There was sweat trickling down her forehead, her heart was beating fast, and her breathing was uneven. She looked around, and finally her eyes fixed on the man holding her.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, hugging the man tight, tears pouring from her eyes.

"Hey." He said, soothingly, rubbing her back.

"When did you get back?" Hermione asked in between sobs. Harry continued to stroke her back in an attempt to calm her down.

"Around five minutes ago." Harry said slightly chuckling. "Got up here as fast as I could. I could hear you screaming from downstairs."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Hermione said, looking up to her best-friend-turned-lover's eyes. Harry smirked, pulling her closer to him. "H-hey!"

The man had only responded with a barely audible chuckle, and pulled her face close to his. He smiled at Hermione's apparent surprise, and as she opened her mouth to protest, Harry brought her lips to his, silencing her with a kiss.

Hermione broke away first, pouting. "No fair."

He let go of her for a while, getting out of bed, taking his shoes and his shirt off, as Hermione went back to her original position at the right hand side of the bed. Harry smiled. With Hermione around, he couldn't see a reason not to. He made his way to his side of the bed, opening the covers and laying himself down.

Hermione inched closer to Harry, who wrapped his left arm around her, resting her head somewhere below his shoulder.

"I see that you're wearing my shirt." Harry said, in an attempt to lighten the mood, his eyes on the oversized blue shirt Hermione was currently wearing. It might be oversized, but it looked nice on her. Then again, in his eyes, everything looked nice on her…and loads nicer off her. Hermione opened her mouth, possibly to explain, but Harry stopped her by saying, "It looks better on you than it does on me."

Hermione relaxed a bit, placing her hand on Harry's chest. The two lay in silence for a while, though both knew neither of them was going to sleep...well, at least yet. Harry turned to his side and kissed Hermione's forehead, and gave her a smile.

"Was it that dream again?" He asked, calmly.

"Y-yes."

The dream was a particularly touchy subject between Hermione and Harry. They had been together for three years now, and even then, Hermione still refused to tell him what the dream was about – and not too long ago, it had caused a fight between the two.

Hermione had decided that it was better that Harry didn't know that the dream was about her former lover. It was quite an unnecessary complication in their relationship – or so she reasoned with herself.

"Oh." Was all Harry could say, before he noticed that Hermione had fallen asleep again, and that she looked rather peaceful this time. Once he made sure that she really was asleep, Harry kissed her forehead again, and he took off his glasses, careful not to make any unnecessary movements. He didn't want to wake her.

Not too long later, he himself fell asleep.

Draco Malfoy wasn't amused. It was two in the morning, and he was still in a muggle bar drinking what appeared to be scotch – or, 'Jack' as the muggles called it. It's been four long years since Hermione disappeared from the world of wizards without so much as anyone knowing where she was headed.

four long years of him searching and finding nothing.

For Merlin's sake, he was Draco sodding Malfoy! At twenty-two, already the highest paid prosecutor for the Wizengamot. He was supposed to know these kinds of things!

"Bartender!" he almost demanded. The man looked at Draco – who apparently was the last customer in the bar – weirdly. Draco rolled his eyes. He wasn't even close to drunk yet, and he'd already had around four bottles of the damn thing.

He needed Firewhisky, but wasn't in any mood to move from where he was seated. The bartender approached him tentatively, holding another bottle of Jack with him. The bartender opened it, of course, and gave Draco another shot glass full.

"We're closing up," the bartender said, treading cautiously. It seemed to even him that Draco wasn't anyone to mess with. Draco drained the glass of whatever liquid it had left, and stood up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a hundred pound bill.

"Keep the change." Draco said, stalking out of the bar.

Muggle London. Totally unfamiliar to Draco, but there he was, his hands in his pockets, not really caring where his feet took him, and probably the only thing keeping him going was the thought of finding her, the thought of finding Hermione Granger somewhere in a city he knew not of.

It's been days, and he's still empty handed.

Almost to his disgust, Draco found himself outside the Wizard Pub, the Leaky Cauldron. How he ended up there, he didn't know. He once promised himself he wouldn't get back here without Hermione – but right now, it seemed to him that that wasn't something would happen over night – hell, he's been in the muggle world for two weeks, and still nothing.

He sighs. Walking into the pub, and walking straight to and through the back door, avoiding anyone's gazes. He grabbed his wand from inside his coat, and tapped the bricks that would get him access into Diagon Alley. The bricks moved slowly at first, and moments later finally becoming an archway for him to pass through.

In the end, those who don't want to be found wouldn't expose themselves so easily.

He laughed mirthlessly. This was exactly the thing he was trying to prevent all those years ago.

He wouldn't admit it, but Draco Malfoy did lose everything that night. His mother, the woman he loved, and the last shred of innocence he had left.

Yes, my Harry is almost too sweet. OK fine, he is too sweet. I just think seven years of pent-up emotions and sexual tension would make the man sweeter, so, yeah. Hello guys! It's me again, Chasing City Lights / Rouge Red Queen. I am almost tempted to change my username again. Anyho. Thank you for reading Screaming Without Lungs! This fanfiction is going to either replace Chasing Pavements, or just be another one of my projects. That's for YOU to decide, though. Reviews, please? :)

PS: I do not own anything you recognize, and there might be song lyrics up there, but this fanfiction is by no means a song fic.

- Reese / Chasing City Lights.