Great thanks to my beta Anamarie! Hugs!
Never Meant to Be
Hermione Granger opened her eyes in a snap.
Looking up at the ceiling, she adjusted her vision to the dark surroundings.
Turning her head slightly toward the elegant Victorian nightstand, the enchanted clock revealed a time that was far too early for any student in Hogwarts to be awake.
She slumped down against the soft plushy pillow and sighed deeply.
With a gentle movement, she lifted a muscular arm from her waist. The figure beside her protested unconsciously with a silent mumble when he felt the emptiness in his arms. Softly, she stuffed a pillow into the empty space. Instantly, the figure tightened his grip around the pillow and a contented smile graced his stoic features.
She drank in his angelic smile and allowed her gaze to linger on his toned chest.
Pushing a strand of blonde hair away from his face, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. The sleek black satin sheet with golden trim slipped down to her waist, exposing her bare body frame.
She got out from the grand four-poster bed and shivered slightly when her bare feet hit the soft carpet.
With her back facing the bed, she bent down and picked up a black satin robe from the ground. With a swift, elegant move, she slipped into it.
The luxurious robe dwarfed her timid body frame and the hem of the robe reached her pale ankles. Hermione Granger tightened the opening of the fabric and inhaled deeply.
A familiar muscular musky cologne scent filled her nostrils.
She approached the window in slow motion with the hope of minimizing the possibility of waking her sleeping partner. However, Hermione Granger was totally oblivious of the pair of steel gray eyes that followed every movement of hers in the night.
Standing against the window frame, the dim moonlight illuminated her fragile yet determined features. Hermione Granger took in the sight in front of her with pure fascination.
Unlike the gloomy and dark surroundings of the Slytherin quarters, this luxurious single room had one of the best views of Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
She was not aware of how long she had stood in front of the window pane. She allowed her thoughts to roam deeply. Her face carried a distant expression. Occasionally she would frown as if something had deeply troubled her, but otherwise she would carry a dreamy look on her blank face.
She was jerked back to earth when she felt a pair of strong muscular arms winding their way around her slender waist and pulling her back against a male chest.
She buried her head in the nape of his neck. A small sigh escaped from her mouth when she felt his warm aura radiating securely from his body.
'Draco.'
Draco Malfoy tightened his embrace and planted a kiss on the top of her head in response.
He released his grip on her waist in search of her hands. Entwining his fingers with hers, he tilted his head and planted a series of light kisses on her exposed neck.
Moving up to her ears, he licked her earlobe in a slow flickering movement.
'Hermione, you should know how much I love seeing you in my robes.'
Listening to his deep husky voice and feeling his hot breath against her ears, Hermione Granger trembled lightly and her muscles involuntarily tensed.
Draco Malfoy guided her hands down to his lower abdomen and closed his eyes in pleasure when he felt her small soft hands against his hardening groin.
Hermione Granger's eyes widened in shock when she realized what her hands had came into contact with.
'My dear Gryffindor princess, you will never know how much you could turn me on.'
A chill shot up her spine and quickly, she shook off his grip and moved her hand to the front of her body.
'Draco, this is wrong.'
Draco Malfoy chuckled softly.
'My, my Hermione. I believe this is only a small taste compared to what we've done in the past.'
Hermione Granger rolled her eyes and mumbled silently in her head.
Insufferable prick.
'Draco, you know I don't mean that.'
The smirk on Draco Malfoy's face was replaced instantly with a blank and distant look.
Once again he wrapped his arms around Hermione's waist but this time, a little tighter compared to previously.
Hermione Granger sighed deeply before she turned slightly and buried her head into his chest.
War was approaching. No one had uttered a word about it, yet everybody could feel the tension in the air. Everyone knew that the inevitable war was just around the corner. The day when light crashed with dark would come sooner than anyone in the Wizarding World could imagine and when the war began, Hogwarts would be the first to fall.
He, a pureblood with a promising future as an accomplished Death Eater and she, a Mudblood with a bright future as the smartest witch of her year and an unofficial member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger remained silent. Both stood against the window together, staring out at the early dawn sky. Both were lost in their own sorrows.
Without realizing, both of them shared the same train of thought.
When war struck, they would be on opposing sides. And when they met, it would be deadly.
They were never meant to be together.
The days in Hogwarts passed uneventfully until one fateful night.
'STUDENTS PLEASE PROCEED TO THE GREAT HALL! ALERT! I REPEAT ALL STUDENTS PLEASE PROCEED TO THE GREAT HALL! ABANDON YOUR BELONGINGS AND MEET AT THE GREAT HALL THIS INSTANT!'
The announcement broke the serene silence of the night and rang through every corner of the ancient walls.
Hermione Granger bolted up from her bed. She hastily pulled on a thick robe over her nightgown and rushed to the bed beside her.
'Lavender! Wake up! Lavender!'
Lavender Brown opened her foggy eyes and blinked in an effort to be more alert.
'Hermione?'
Hermione Granger threw a thick robe on her friend and rushed down to the common room.
Before she disappeared from the heavy door, she turned around and shouted.
'THE WAR HAS BEGUN! Wake the others and gather in the Great Hall! QUICK!'
'Hermione!'
Hermione Granger paused as she rushed down the stairs heading toward the Great Hall.
'HARRY!'
Hermione exclaimed loudly and ran toward her best friend.
'Harry! The War's started! What should we do?'
'We fight, Mione. We fight.'
The emerald-eyed, bespectacled boy looked at his grief-stricken friend and saw his own fearful face in the reflection in her honey brown eyes.
They hugged each other and hurried toward the Great Hall.
'Students of Hogwarts.'
Every voice in the Great Hall silenced upon hearing the weary voice of the headmaster.
Professor Dumbledore gazed upon his panic and fearful students. His eyes had lost its usual twinkle; his face looked old and troubled.
'Students, I'm afraid I need to go straight to the point. War has begun. Voldemort and his fellow Death Eaters have made their first strike in the Ministry of Magic. I'm afraid Hogwarts will be their next target.'
The voice in the Hall increased immensely due to some sobbing, some shrieking, and some cursing.
'HUSH! Students, now is the time to show your wits and courage. Do not be afraid. I want all prefects to lead your house toward the according secret passages that all of you have practiced on numerous accounts. Move in silence and DO NOT panic. NOW GO!'
There was a moment of silence in the Great Hall.
Every student was looking at their headmaster, lost.
Then, swiftly, everybody began to move. Prefects sent out instructions and grouped their house members while students looked for their beloved and friends.
Hermione Granger glanced around worriedly, trying her best to get a glimpse of Draco Malfoy. She failed. He was not among the crowd.
She failed to locate neither Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, the two oafs Crabbe and Goyle, nor Marcus Flint.
Her heart sank.
She knew where they had gone to.
They were all bloody Death Eaters! Where else could they be?
Unconsciously, Hermione Granger followed the lead of her house prefect toward their secret passageway with Harry and Ron pulling her along.
Frantically, she glanced toward the Slytherin crowd in the Hall, making her last attempt to seek out Draco Malfoy.
Nothing.
He was gone.
There were so many things she had wanted to tell him.
Yet, he had left her without a word.
Lost in her bitterness, she was pushed backwards by the panicking crowd and found herself separated from her two best friends, sandwiched in between seas of students. She saw their worried look and she motioned them to continue moving, assuring them that she would meet up with them later.
Suddenly, a hand beside her grabbed her arm and dragged her into a dark corner.
Before she could scream, the figure pushed her against the wall and his identity was revealed.
'Draco! I was...I was looking for you but I couldn't find you. I thought you were gone! Draco, the war's started. Please don't go! I know where you need to be! Please don't join them! Please! I beg you. I love you. Please stay with me. We could be together! We could!'
Draco Malfoy looked at her with a strange expression, an expression that she failed to decipher.
Looking into his bitter yet cold eyes, apprehension began to come upon her.
Hastily, Draco Malfoy grabbed her arms and pulled her into a deep kiss.
Tears streamed down her pale face.
This was a goodbye kiss. She knew.
Gripping tightly on his sleeve, Hermione's bitter sob was muffled by his lips.
After what seemed like an hour but was actually only a few seconds, Draco Malfoy pulled back.
He looked down at her tightening grip on his sleeve and moved up his gaze to her face.
Slowly, one by one, he peeled off her fingers from his sleeve.
Looking into his eyes, Hermione could see the hardening form of the steel gray eyes. Gone was all the love, gone were all the times they had had together. She chuckled bitterly; from the very start of their forbidden relationship it had never been a tender one anyway.
Draco Malfoy lifted a hand and stroked her teary cheek.
'Granger. We were never meant to be.'
Withdrawing his hand in a quick motion as if something had stung it, he Apparated away without giving her a second glance.
Hermione leaned against the wall weakly and choked when she failed to suppress her sorrowful cry.
When she heard her last name muttered out from his mouth, when she felt his lingering touch leaving her face, she knew. This was the end and the beginning. The end of the Gryffindor Mudblood with the Slytherin Pureblood prince and the beginning of the Order member Granger, no longer with the Death Eater Malfoy.
She knew, when they met, only one would stand in the end.
Hermione Granger was drained. She was hollow and she was weary.
It had been a year since the day all of them had fled Hogwarts.
Hogwarts was nothing more than a memory of a time past. Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had fallen months ago to the dark.
So many lives they had lost.
Finally, the time had come. This was the last battle. Either the light won or they would fall forever into the darkness.
She stood at the battleground with a blank look on her face. She could hear Ginny shouting beside her. She could see Lupin cradling Tonks's limp body in his arms. She could feel Ron's stone-cold body beside her feet. She could see Lucuis Malfoy's dead body lying beside Seamus's.
After witnessing so much bloodshed and death, after experiencing the loss of friends and those whom she loved and respected, Hermione Granger was nothing but a walking shell.
The only thought in her mind was to kill as many Death Eaters as she could before she joined her friends in hell. They were all murderers. The light and the dark. No one could escape the consequences of taking the lives of the others. No one. All of them would pay somehow or another. They; the light and the dark, all belonged in hell.
Hermione Granger cast the killing curse repeatedly, one after another, until she reached a man in a cloak with gleaming blonde hair.
The man had his back facing her. He had just cast a deadly spell toward Parvati Patil. She could see her best friend's stilled body falling slowly with a thud to the bloodstained ground. Now, he turned his attention toward someone she reckoned to be a seventh-year Ravenclaw. He was oblivious to her presence.
She stood like a statue. The voices around her left her head. Everything had become so numb. So numb.
She could see herself pointing her wand toward his back. It was like her body and mind had detached and separated into two different beings. One moved calmly in a deadly manner. One arched and screamed in agony.
A lone tear slipped out from her blank and emotionless eye.
'Avada Kedavra.'
She stood numbly as the man with blonde hair crumpled and fell to the ground motionless.
'Malfoy, we were never meant to be.'
The End.
This is my very first harry potter fanfic. Please review! Let me know how is it.
Your reviews my motivation.