Her body was uncomfortably sore and felt restrained by a number of contraptions.

Had she survived?

Opening her eyes proved itself to be too much of an effort and her throat was too dry to produce coherent sound.

Was this death?

A gust of wind brought an all too familiar scent to her nose, the smell of the hospital ward; she had spent enough time her volunteering to recognize such a thing. All efforts to wake up from her trance were abandoned. Sleep was the closest thing to death she had decided.

Draco Malfoy stood at the side of her bed, watching her bruised face change expressions. He did not know what to do or say. His first instinct to be worried and try and wake her up was overridden by his second to maintain his proud Malfoy status. All he knew at this moment was that he hated her.

He circled the bed in consternation, a delicate scowl placed upon his immaculate features. Just looking at her made him sick. Her soft brown curls were let loose all over her pillow as if they were trying to comfort her injured body.

She had almost died.

Hermione Granger had tried to kill herself, he knew that no one believed him when he had brought her to the ward, what was even stranger was his story of the Whomping Willow coming to Granger's rescue.

Perhaps Granger's anger and desperation called out to useless tree, forcing it to calm it's thrashing branches and catch the crazed girl. Whatever it was, if it weren't for it Granger would be dead.

It was a foreign idea to Draco, he had only ever been used to family enemies coming to their demise or fellow Death Eaters he had never met before dying. Death had always kept itself very far away from Draco in the emotional sense. But now he simply wasn't sure what he was feeling. So there he stood, five feet away from Granger's bed, as he had been since the morning he had rushed her in.

Madame Pomfrey said nothing to him as she went about her daily ministrations taking care of Hermione and he in turn said nothing to her about the welfare of his would be lover.

It had been almost a week now and Granger had still not woken up. That blasted Pomfrey woman claimed that all of her bones were healed along with some torn ligaments and that she should have woken up a long time ago, even Dumbledore had commented on her lack of vim for restoration, and those bloody Gryffindors who found it so alien to see Malfoy in the same with room with Granger constantly had gone as far as to accuse him of poisoning her. Like he had the time. So what was keeping Granger away from him?

His scowl deepened. It was just like her to cause him this great of an inconvenience. It was just like her to beg for such attention from him. And if she hadn't nearly died he wouldn't have given it.

Granger had to learn.

But in this situation he had no idea how to punish her. Seeing her jump out of that window thoroughly scarred him, she had looked so peaceful and free as she fell back first into the fog, she had looked so happy. At least happier than he had ever seen her before.

Was death what she coveted?

Was this his own doing?

No! He would not let Granger bring such emotions into their interactions with each other. Things would remain the same. Why should her attempted suicide make anything different? After all it wasn't the emotional part of her he was interested in, his eyes skimmed over her body sheathed in a thin hospital gown, it was the physical.

He turned to leave for the first time in 5 days but stopped himself as he neared the exit. He looked back at Granger for a moment.

And that moment was enough.

"We've all really missed you Hermione. Harry has tried his best to collect all of your assignments for you and has even gone and written some of your essays for you. Hahaha, I think you'd probably have to rewrite them though. A Slytherin girl came looking for you yesterday, she was gorgeous, and I felt embarrassed just looking at her. She went positively bonkers when I told her you were in the hospital ward. I wish you could open your eyes and see the flowers she sent you…"

Ginny sat by Hermione's bed and continued to dictate the day's happenings to her as she had every day since the jump. She was a faithful and dedicated friend and despite her anger at Hermione for jumping in the first place, could not bear to see her friend in such a state.

"Ron's been positively miserable without you. Ferret face has gone and disappeared. You know he was here with you constantly after you jumped. He never said anything, he never sat down, he just stood in the corner there and watched you like a fucking night guard…Dumbledore says he was the one who found you after the Whomping Willow threw you into the lake, well not throw per say, more along the line of dropped"

Ginny watched her face intently as she always did for any sign of revival, and as always was steadily disappointed.

"Hermione how did that happen? I mean it's the bloody Whomping Willow. Your head should have come off or something. Dumbledore says you hit it's top branches first and that's why you're so bruised up and then he says that it picked you up and placed you in the lake, sans any thrashing or Whomping action. Did you charm it or something?"

Ginny couldn't bear to look at her face anymore. It seemed that there was so much of her best friend she didn't know, and the realization hurt.

"I have to go now 'Mione"

Ginny stood with a sad air about her. She gently pushed her friends hair back and left before she burst into tears once more.

"How is she?"

None of them had the strength to go and visit Hermione apart from Ginny so it was now customary that she report to everybody else her best friends condition.

"Still the same. I talk, she sleeps"

Ginny felt helpless. She threw herself down on one of the red couches that decorated the Gryffindor common room, Harry and Ron hovered above her silently.

"I wonder why she did it…"

Harry mumbled to no one in particular. Ginny sighed in vexation.

"Whatever reason she had she obviously couldn't share it with us now could she?"

She was angry, she was utterly infuriated with her best friend. She thought they shared everything with each other. Hermione's attempted suicide felt like a slap in the face to Ginny. What was there that she couldn't talk about?

"You know she had been acting strange the past couple of months…"

Ron commented, he was staring intently at Harry when he said this.

"Strange enough to kill herself?"

Harry scoffed.

"But isn't that how suicide normally goes? Nobody ever sees it coming, it's in those bloody muggle psycho-whatever books 'Mione has up in her room"

All three were silent at this. It was true Hermione's demeanor had changed, but not drastically enough to incite questions. She had just become rather reserved and much more quite, like she didn't want any trouble. She never bickered or fought with any of her Slytherin competition, in fact she all but ignored them and she would constantly disappear for nights on end.

Something had been wrong with her, and they had all noticed but it just didn't seem urgent enough to warrant their attention.

With this realization guilt slowly crept into each and every one of their systems.

Could they have stopped this?