Disclaimer: I own nothing

A/N: italic sections are flashbacks of the last week-hope that doesn't confuse you!

Hermione loved the woods in the morning.

A fine mist hung over the trees, giving them a ghostly look. The air always smelled so fresh and inviting, the kind of scent air-freshener companies would always attempt-and fail-to achieve. The birds were just settling down for the day. Their songs filtered through the mist and underbrush, a soothing background noise.

Malfoy had woken up several times in the past week, a little bit longer each time. When he wasn't sneering and insulting her blood, as he had been in all of her previous memories, he was interesting to talk to. He was very smart, and had a view point on the world that was different from what she had heard from Ron and Harry.

As she walked, she thought back to these conversations. They were the highlights of her day.

"How do you feel?"

"Numb. Just as I have been every time you ask."

"So you can't feel your legs?"

"Ah, that's why. As you have both said and proved, you are no Madam Promfrey, and you have no idea what to do when this 'temporary measure' of yours has run its course. Hermione, I haven't felt them since..." He trailed off. Hermione had noticed that he didn't like to even think about the mauling if he didn't have to.

"Since your accident?"

"Yes, since then. Hermione, I think you're right. Even if my legs and back do heal, I won't be walking after this."

"I shouldn't have said that. There's a chance you'll recover enough to walk-"

"A practically non-existent chance."

"I mean, there could be a magical process I don't know about, some spell-"

"Are you kidding Hermione? You know more spells than I do. You probably know more spells than some teachers. If there was a spell that could fix this, you would know it. You would have read some thick book on it by some obscure wizard I've never heard of."

"Draco, I'm trying to be positive, but it won't work if you insist on dwelling only on the negative."

"I know."

Hermione smiled to herself. A crow was overhead, cawing. CAW-caw, CAW-caw, I-know, I-know. To hear Draco talk, you would think there was not a think you could talk about that he didn't already know.

Laughing, she continued down the well-worn path to her cavern.

Draco lay on the verge on consciousness. It was getting much easier to open his eyes. He could now do it without aid from Hermione's harp.

Of course, he much preferred to open his eyes and see Hermione coaxing music from the strings as though she was the Pied Piper, a smile on her face.

Draco knew what was happening to him. He was becoming friends with a Mudblood. He never would have thought it possible. Then again, he should have known-with all this time for contemplation, most of the things the Dark Lord had told him were becoming nonsense to him.

Hermione was kind to him, exceptionally so. He enjoyed talking to her. He kept their conversations fresh in his mind-memories were all he had to hang onto when he did eventually go unconscious again.

"Draco, you need to eat something. You haven't eaten in weeks. This is the first time you've been awake long enough to eat. The least you could do is try to stomach some soup."

"You're a horrible cook. That nightmare you call soup is repulsive."

"Draco, you need to eat something. Starvation won't do you any favors."

"If you are desperate for me to eat, then give me something I can stomach."

At this point, Hermione grabbed the bowl and forced it to his lips, and tilted it, sending the contents down his still-open mouth before he could close it against the onslaught of soup.

Draco gagged, and spat it all back out. Some of it landed on Hermione, staining her shirt. Draco waited for her to get flustered, to shout at him, to run off and try to get as much of it off her clothes as possible, but she just picked up the bowl again. Draco could have gone into hysterics if he wasn't a Malfoy. His mother would have thrown a fit over her ruined clothes, but Hermione didn't put as much care into her clothes.

This time, Hermione snatched some tape before forcing the soup down his throat, and then quickly taped his mouth shut.

Draco could have rolled his eyes. Only Hermione could do something as childish as this, yet still achieve her goal.

"Draco, be good and drink it. If you get through half or more, I'll bring something tomorrow that you'll like better."

The next day, she had followed through, bringing him hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream.

Hermione was so different from the upper-class snobs he had met before now. None of them would have dreamed of letting soup get on their precious clothes, or used tape to achieve their ends. No, they would have whipped out their wands and cleaned away the stain, then paralyzed Draco long enough to pour the entire bowl down his throat.

In other words, the experience would have been a nightmare.

He remembered how Hermione had quickly learned of his love of strawberries in one conversation. She had found some on her way to the cavern one morning, and had asked if he liked them.

"Do you like strawberries?"

"Who doesn't? They're sweet, they have natural sugar, you can bake them into all kinds of desserts, they're the perfect size to fit in you're mouth-"

"I didn't know Draco Malfoy actually loved something."

"I said like, not love."
"I've never heard you give one thing so many compliments at one time."

Changing the subject slightly, Draco asked "Why do you ask?"

"I found some on the way here..."

Draco chose that moment to lung forward, wince at the stiffness and numbness that almost halted him from his back, and snatched the little crimson berries from Hermione's hand, and popped them one by one into his mouth.

Hermione laughed as bright red juice trickled down his face. This red substance was much more welcome on his face than blood.

Draco smiled at the memory. Come to think of it, Hermione would be here soon. He began to push at the walls holding him in unconsciousness. He wanted to be awake when she got here.

Hermione came to a stop at the side of her path-she stopped here every morning. Right here was a patch of strawberries, a splash of potential ice cream sundae toppings.

She plucked the berries carefully from their stems, avoiding breaking any.

After that first time she had brought berries and he had downed them in one gulp, he savored every one. It was the only thing he would eat. (He was very vocal about her 'third-rate soup-cooking skills')

Hermione glanced at the bag she had set down on the path beside her. Inside were a strawberry smoothie, bread and strawberry jam, and a piece of strawberry-filled chocolate cake. He really did need to eat something-he was so thin, he would starve if he didn't start eating again. Hermione had been working on a plan to smuggle food to her cavern-her parents knew she had a fort of some sort out in the woods, she would claim she was having a picnic in that fort.

But first, she would give him a test meal today to see how much he could stomach-after going for so long without food, his stomach was sure to have shrunk. He couldn't turn up his nose to this-it was practically all strawberries.

Having picked all the berries on that particular bush, Hermione set off again. She couldn't go too fast-she had twisted her ankle yesterday. But she had to pick up some speed. Draco didn't like it when she was late.

Hermione ran down the path, panting hard. She was late, and she knew it. Draco was probably waiting for her.

She jumped down the hole in the roots, and sprinted to where Draco lay (candles now a good arm's distance away).

"Hermione? Where were you?"

"I slept late."

Draco looked like he accepted the apology, but he still looked shaken. It obviously frightened him that Hermione might not show up one day.

"It's fine, Draco. Take a deep breath."

"Hermione, please don't sleep late again."

"It's not something I do intentionally."

"Don't you have one of those beeping things that Muggles put by their bed that rudely wakes them up in the morning?"

"An alarm clock?"

"Yeah, that. Well, don't you have one?"

"I used to, but one morning it woke me up on my birthday, and I really didn't want to get up. I picked it up and threw it. It went through the window and fell in my neighbor's yard. Their dog tried to eat it. By the time I went and got it, there was no way it would ever wake me up again."

Draco laughed at this, all worry about Hermione's absence temporarily forgotten.

Hermione paused-she thought she heard a rustle in the bushes. But it was probably just a bird.

Draco sat up. He could practically hear Hermione's footsteps coming this way.

Draco flexed his arms. Today he would surprise her. He would be waiting for her at the cavern entrance. He couldn't walk, but he had found that his arms had not been hurt badly in the bear attack. So, he could drag himself.

He braced his hand against the uneven floor, and began pulling himself towards the entrance.

Hermione thought he might walk again. Draco knew otherwise. His legs were almost surely useless. He couldn't feel them, which wasn't a good sign. Just looking at them, and seeing how terribly mangled his left leg was another sign.

Well, if he couldn't walk, he might as well be able to get around somehow. The solution wasn't dragging himself, but it was a good temporary measure.

Hermione was practically on top of the cavern. All she had to do was jump down. Then, out of nowhere, a cat appeared. It was her neighbor's cat, who had gone missing about a month ago. Surprised, she froze mid-jump, for just a second.

Hermione was never an acrobat, or really that athletic. Someone with more balance, more strength, better reflexes (basically everyone she knew) would have been able to right themselves after that brief mistake.

Hermione could not.

Not that it would have done her much good.

The tree roots criss-crossed each other, coated in a slippery moss. Hermione usually took care when going down to her cavern, though she did like to jump down the hole instead of just lowering herself.

Even if she had had better reflexes, and had righted herself, she would have come down on these roots and broken something. Hermione, on the other hand, having not righted herself, tumbled right on through the hole, hitting the hard ground.

Draco sat near the entrance. He had done it! He had dragged himself all the way here. He could hear Hermione's footfalls. They were slightly uneven-a twisted ankle?

Then, she jumped. Draco could look up through the hole in the roots. Behind her, in the bushes, was a cat. It looked pretty scared. It broke cover and seemed to pad away from Hermione.

Then Hermione saw it. She froze in surprise. She obviously hadn't seen it. He watched her jump be ruined by the sudden freeze. Her eyes widened. She tried to right herself, but couldn't.

Hermione fell into the cavern, about a foot in front of Draco. She came down hard on her leg. Draco remembered her uneven footfalls and his hypothesis that she had a hurt foot. It was probably true. She came down on her foot hard.

It buckled, sending her crashing down to the cavern floor.

Draco realized too late that he was in her way.

She would have just fallen to the floor, and winded herself badly, maybe even needed to go home, which would have been a nightmare for Draco a few moments ago.

Now, he watched her fall over him and go head-over-heels into the candles that she had moved out of his reach.

Hermione's weight, like the domino effect, sent the candles in front of her crashing, and the ones in front of them crashing. Her hair caught fire.

The candles had started a fire. Draco took one moment to wonder why she hadn't just brought down a lantern instead of the hazardous candles. Then his gaze was brought to her hair. Flames ate at it. Her hair, which had seemed like a flame when he had briefly gained consciousness for the first time after the bear mauling, now really was a flame, made hazy by the smoke that rose hissing like a snake from the fire.

A bag around her waist flopped open, and strawberries and cake fell onto her hands, coating them in red and brown.

Like blood and dirt.

Flames quickly consumed the food, filling the enclosed space with the scent of burnt fruit.

The hole in the roots was too small, and the flame and smoke spreading too quickly. Either they would choke to death without smoke-free air to breathe, or the whole tree would come down on them in fire, burning them to cinders.

Draco watched in horror as flames leaped to Hermione's harp. Her beautiful harp, which had brought him back to the waking world so many times, was falling to the fire, strings burning like Hermione's hair.

He started dragging himself to Hermione's side to help her, though how he could help he didn't know. If he had had his wand, he could have just put out the fire.

But Hermione had taken his wand, and with good reason. She had taken it the day he had promised her with his eyes that he would kill her.

It seemed he was following through on that particular promise.

He thought of the day he had stupidly tried to knock over the candles and kill Hermione. He never would have suspected this, though the fire he would have started would have been near identical to this.

Draco tried to drag himself to Hermione, but he knew he wouldn't make it in time.

Hermione was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.