Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling. Sorry.

AN: Sipping my wine with an evil grin... enjoy.

Chapter 10

Time is the longest distance

Between two places

- Tennessee Williams

Something called her to the night. Pushing open the glass doors, she stepped out onto the balcony. She felt bathed in the moonlight, the breath of the wind caressing her skin. Her white nightgown fluttered around her thighs. She felt cleansed beneath the stars, as if every doubt and fear could be washed from her mind by their gentle light. As if she somehow knew he would be there, she turned to look at Malfoy. He was staring at her with raw emotion written upon his features. Her mouth parted as she took a breath of the cool night air. Something linked them there, two souls cast into the darkness.

He stepped onto the railing of the balcony, facing her and the empty air below him, just past his feet. But she wasn't afraid. His bare chest was cut with shadows as the moon spun them into silhouette versions of themselves. Suddenly, he threw his head back in a silent scream as wings burst from his back, thrusting outward, feathers as dark as the night and gleaming like the stars. A moment hovered as he stretched them wide and then leapt into the space between them, falling downward. But she wasn't afraid. His wingbeats split through the air and he rose before her, landed beside her. The wings seemed to melt from his body into a pool of feathers that flurried around them, pushing them closer with touches so soft she shut her eyes against the feel. But she wasn't afraid.

Touch. He reached out and touched her, his hand gliding down the side of her ribs to the edge of her hip. His fingers fell to her arm, trailing embers across her skin, until, gliding across her palm, they connected, wrapped in each other, hand in hand, inseparable. He kissed her and everything was color and sound. Time began and ended and continued and he kissed her. He whispered something – what was it? – between their mouths as he pressed her close to him – the wind, the feathers, all of it around them, but nothing left to separate them. He moved her backwards, into her room, onto her bed. She fell onto the blankets like the sun falls between mountains, burning with passion. But she wasn't afraid.

His hands were gentle, always gentle, as if they touched something unfathomably rare. His fingers brushed down her cheek, her neck, across her chest, leaving lingering trails of energy infused in her skin. He was painting her with his thoughts, his feelings, his love, leaving it there on her body like he was an artist and she his masterpiece. His hand ran down her thigh, grasping under her knee and pulling it higher against his body, tracing a line up to her hip, pressing her closer to him. But he pulled away from her, leaving her like a drowning woman desperate for the necessity of his kiss, his silver eyes like twin moons ignited into light by the sun beneath him.

"Hermione," and her name was a promise of something she couldn't comprehend. "I love you," and she felt the words sink into her very skin. I love you. But she wasn't afraid.

Her eyes flew open. Her breath was coming in short gasps as she sat up quickly, looking around her room, dark and empty, his voice, the dream, still ringing in her ears. And something about it left her entirely terrified.

xxxxx

Draco woke up. Twenty seven days. After that, he would be alone. He thought of his father that day. There had always been an absence of love from the man's eyes. Draco had noticed it even as a child. He felt himself tighten at the thought of the cold, almost formal goodbye he had received the first day he boarded the Hogwarts express. He'd sat alone in one of the compartments waiting for the other students to board, watching the platform curiously. Molly Weasley had been standing next to one of the tall pillars with tears rolling down her face as she tightly hugged each of her children. She had so many, and yet she gave each and every one of them so much love. You could tell with just a look in her eyes, and it had made his heart constrict painfully. He had everything he could want, anything money could buy – but he had never been looked at that way, the way Molly looked at her children. He hated them for it, in his stupid childish way, he had hated the Weasley's for being loved.

Twenty six days. They began reading together regularly on the couch in the common room. He could hardly focus on the book in his hands knowing she was right next to him. She seemed so peaceful, smiling at some pages, eyes wide at others. She read books like they were people.

Twenty five days. They ran into each other in the library late in the hazy evening, the day a blur of words and faces. Yet that moment there among the shelves as they walked, laughing, competing over who had read the most books, learning to see each other as they were, that moment was in sharp focus.

Twenty four days. They sat by the fire for endless hours as she read aloud to him her favorite book, and her voice was a life raft. She spoke the words as if they were a familiar friend, cried at them as if they were breaking her heart for the first time, paused to savor them as if they were a brand new experience. He thought then how beautiful she was.

Twenty three days. He made tea and they sat out on his balcony in the cold, surrounded by blankets and rising steam. For a while they talked about small things. She loved oranges, he ate peppermints like they were crack. But neither of them were much for small talk, and the conversation shifted as effortlessly as the heat fled from their mugs. They wondered about the fate of it all, or if fate was real, the reasons behind every small and significant action that drive our lives forward. They weighed the value of the night, the comfort of darkness, the mercy and ruthlessness of the day. They argued fiercely over the existence of the soul, of which he was so sure, and she so very doubtful. He fell in love with her too many times to count. The way she became enraptured with every little detail of the world. The way her eyes lit up as she listened to him, understanding him down to his soul – and he had one, he knew it. The way the wind moved through her hair. The way she pulled the blanket around herself, over her head like a child. And she, well she found her heart pulled closer and closer to him, as easily as the waves are pulled to shore, because here was a person unrecognizable from the Malfoy she had known. He spoke like a poet, listened to her like her words were music, surprised her in ways that electrified her very bones. There in that space, they finally began to understand one another.

Twenty two days. They made amortentia in potions. He smelled falling rain, lilac blossoms, and her. But it didn't come close to the real thing. He looked at her as she leaned closer to it, wide eyed, holding back her long curls. She smelled freshly mown grass, new parchment, and him. Him. It took her by surprise, and when she looked up to meet his wondering eyes, something began to change.

Twenty one days. Another gone like a blink.

Twenty days. He spent the night in the Slytherin dormitory. Too many of them were losing their parents that month. He was reminded again of how misrepresented this house was. There was a fierce loyalty between them all, even if it wasn't always friendship. Looking around the common room, seeing his fellow Slytherins huddled close, losing it all together in that safe silence, he was pained at how few of them he was close to. He had always made sure that he was distant and unreachable to anyone. It was how he survived. But that night, he wished he had allowed himself to grow close to someone. He thought of her, then.

Nineteen days. Everyone in the Slytherin dorm was woken early that morning by Avery Russel. He came in at the peak of dawn, yelling excitedly about the snowstorm rushing down in a blinding haze. Within minutes, every one of them was out the door, eyes bright with excitement. Even Draco found himself swept up in the heady feeling of excitement. It happened every year – the Slytherin House Snowball Fight. As the doors outside were pushed open and they were bombarded by a wave of cold and wind and snow, it almost seemed as though their suffering disappeared, lost in the snowstorm. There was a moment of stillness, of butterfly wonder. Draco remembered then how many of them were only children, and looking at their faces, he felt painfully young. It seemed to him, then, that every day has an equal chance of being the best or the worst, and each time it is, it feels irreplaceable. Draco thought maybe this day could be one of the better ones. And then they charged out into the white, laughter erasing, for a moment, everything else.

Eighteen days. Hermione came back late that night. He couldn't help but tear his eyes away from the book he sat reading to watch her. He was beginning to believe for the first time that the real world could be more beautiful than the worlds created by ink on paper. Over the past months, her constant presence in his life had become an irreplaceable comfort. He felt himself fracture at the thought that, one day, she would disappear from him too. As she poured her tea with graceful hands, humming some sweet music, he wanted nothing more than to yell, "Please don't leave me". But he was too strong for that. He never begged for anything. He didn't want her pity or her sympathy. So he turned away and read his book.

Seventeen days.

Sixteen days.

Fifteen days. The time ticked by, relentless.

Fourteen days. She woke him up early, creeping into his room and crawling onto his bed. She told him with a devilish smile that they were going on an adventure and pulled him out from beneath his covers. He asked what the hell she was doing, and with a smirk she said, "being friends". So they went out into the growing day. He followed her into the forest beneath the moving shadows of slowly swaying trees. Together they climbed the tallest one, fearlessly ascending, around and around, branch after branch passing beneath their hands, laughing hysterically when piles of snow inevitably landed on their heads. What feelings that ancient oak must have felt as those quiet sparks of life alighted its high boughs, until they collided, finally, in that space between the ground and the sky, the whole world stretching for miles around them. They sat there in wide-eyed silence, just watching the wind whisper across the forest, and the forest yearn to touch the lake, and the lake commune with the wind in unfathomable patterns, and the mountains loom over it all. He held her hand that morning, sitting in that tree. It wasn't a romantic gesture, wasn't filled with excitement and electricity. It was a word, a thought, a feeling quiet awe that here they were to witness the rise of the sun.

Thirteen days. Draco sat on the edge of his bed, trying to find peace. His mind, however, was turning out thoughts like the devil's blacksmith. He thrust himself off the mattress and out the door. It seemed like everyone he passed just stared at him. They were met with icy glares. Sometimes he hated the lot of them. Each of them had been given some semblance of comfort in their lives, even the other Slytherin kids had been mostly shielded from Voldemort. But he had been offered up like a sacrifice, forced onto the front line, used like a weapon to punish his damned father. His condemned father. He had been expected to fail, to die. But Malfoy's don't fail. Malfoy's fight. Malfoy's win. So he had become the best, and nothing had ever felt worse. The cold air of the winter hit him like a gulp of frigid water falling down his throat on a sweltering day. It felt right – necessary. He walked slowly across the grounds, but the world seemed to be moving in quick motion. Footsteps cracking through the snow like breaking bones, distance collecting behind him, then all of it smashing to a sudden halt. Just next to his foot, something peeked out of the ice. Something small and fantastically red like a splash of blood. He bent down and ran his fingers across the petals of the flower. Even in the midst of chaos and cold, this flower had grown, bright and brilliant. Just like her.

Twelve days, eleven days. Draco returned to the Head's dorm after classes to find Hermione and Ron together in the common room. She was laughing so hard it seemed like tears might come out of her eyes. He couldn't help by stare. She looked so happy, so completely unburdened. When Ron noticed him standing there, he felt himself stiffen to stone, but the redhead waved him over and to the shock of them all they spent an afternoon playing cards and laughing at each other's jokes. Like actual friends. He supposed he didn't really hate Weasley after all.

Ten days. Draco kicked back another shot of scotch. He sat on the edge of the astronomy tower, the world beginning to tilt around him after one too many drinks. He simply had no desire to feel it anymore, any of it. Not even the good things. He swung his feet, his heels knocking a jarring crescendo up through his legs as they hit the brick wall, then open air, swinging out and in and pounding it all away, all the thoughts and god damn feelings, because fuck those, and replacing them with pure physical sensation. He leaned forward, just a bit, just enough to watch the open air beneath him pulsate in waves of hazy, drunken movement.

"Draco, mate, what are you doing?" He turned his head to look at Blaise. The boy was just barely shorter than Draco, handsome in a more practical way. He grabbed Draco by the shoulders and hauled him off the ledge.

"You're drunk, mate." Draco scoffed at Blaise's words, giving him a glacial look. Of course he was drunk. Fool.

"C'mon, let's get you home." Blaise began guiding Draco down the stairs.

"Shove off," he muttered, trying to pull away and crashing into the wall instead. Blaise just laughed, and began pushing Malfoy periodically in the right direction. After a brief scuffle outside the portrait hole, Blaise managed to stuff the boy through, following close behind him. Both of them froze on entering. An entire hoard of Gryffindors had scattered themselves around the common room and the silence that met them was so abrasive it could cut. The two boys stood there in shock until the sound of a door opening split the silence and Hermione scampered into the room, holding something above her head in triumph.

"I found it!" She shouted. The look of excitement slowly melted off her face as she took in the room. Malfoy advanced on her, predatory. Suddenly, she seemed very small and vulnerable, and he very intimidating and dangerous, like a loose cannon.

"Your room. Now." He growled at her, sweeping past her and up the stairs. He heard her softly follow him, and the commencement of angry whispers explode behind him. Blaise would just have to fend for himself among the lions. Something about that made him sadistically happy.

It was the first time he had been inside her room. He was surprised by how much it resembled his own – white and sterile. The only difference was the books; they were everywhere.

"What's with the party, Granger? I thought the common room was shared space. You should have told me." He rounded on her, suddenly furious. He was sick of the double standards, of feeling like he was constantly on trial for every move he made. Her face remained impassive as she stared at him.

"I couldn't find you anywhere, I'm sorry. Wait, are you drunk?" she asked, confusion coloring her face. He reached up and rubbed at his face, then glanced down her between his fingers. His eyes moved to the object she was hugging to her like a shield.

"Why do you have an Endless Bottom bottle of Voodoo's Vodka?" He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Those things cost a fortune." A blush crept over her cheeks and she fought to contain the guilty smile threatening to overtake her face and again he felt like his world was turning upside down.

"I, uh, stole it," she said quietly after a pause, sticking her chin out and daring him to even try and reprimand her. He felt his jaw drop open in surprise. Granger, of all people, had stolen something? He stared at her, and couldn't help but laugh at the shear absurdity of it all.

"Damn, Granger," he said, his eyes traveling over her, appraising her. When he finally met her eyes again, a breathless moment hung suspended between them and suddenly his reasons for staying away from her didn't seem so clear and he unconsciously stepped closer. He couldn't stop his hand from reaching up and tucking a stray curl behind her ear. He wanted to kiss her, to taste her, to touch her, and he couldn't deny that those feelings were mirrored in her own eyes. The tension and desire between them was palpable in the air. Draco's mind wasn't functioning, all he could think about was pulling her against him, pressing her to the bed, running his hands over her body, teasing her with his mouth, feeling her breath mingled with his, tearing her clothes straight off, hearing his name on her lips as he –

His thoughts were halted by laughter from the common room. He dropped his hand from her hair and walked out without another word. Blaise, of course, was standing at the center of attention, regaling the Gryffindors, to his horror, with stories of their drunken antics over the years. He realized he was in for another weird and disorienting night of actually enjoying the company of Gryffindors. Thank god he was already drunk.

Nine days. Draco got out of bed with the first rays of sunlight. He hadn't slept at all. He washed down his breakfast with a glass of scotch, ignoring the sleeping forms of Hermione's friends strewn around the common room, took a deep breath, and set out. It was the day. The careful inspection, scrutinous questions, empty hallways that echoed their disapproval, disorienting disapparitions, the feelings of cold and empty air – it all passed in disarray. He arrived at Azkaban, finally. It was the day. The last day he'd speak to his father. He sat in a grimy little room with two chairs separated by four feet and uncountable layers of magic. As a door on the opposite side of the room opened, he had to stop the sharp intake of breath that threatened his lungs. The man who walked in was not his father, not anymore. This man was dirty and sheared, his eyes held no pride, no strength, no bravery, not even cruelty. This was a broken man, a lost man. Draco wondered if he was staring at his future. Lucius sat down in one of the chairs with trembling hands, warily looking at his son. But the boy, too, was unrecognizable to the man. The months had changed more than just their faces.

"Father." His voice was filled with desolation.

"Son." His voice was filled with regret.

The man leaned forward in his chair, and for a long, long minute they simply looked each other. The silence spoke more than any words could. Draco had not seen his father since he had betrayed the Dark Lord and switched sides in the war. But this man, this broken husk of a man, he had seen once before. Once, after the execution of his mother, and only for a brief and inestimable moment. Lucius dropped his face into his hands, the trembling devolving into uncontrolled shudders of pain.

"I wish I'd had your courage." His words shocked Draco to the core. He recognized once more, then, the sharp truth. Too many of those who followed Voldemort had done so not out of belief, but out of fear, unconquerable fear. He wondered how many of them would now lose their souls for the very human act of being afraid. The moment slipped again into jagged silence.

"I can't forgive you. I will always love you, you're my father, but I can't forgive you." Lucius looked up at his son, his only son, and saw in his eyes the ruin and devastation he had brought tumbling down. He nodded. It broke Draco's heart. He wanted to cry or to hold this demolished man, to walk him out the door and burn all the hardship away under the sun.

"I love you, Draco." Each word cut into him with the most delicious agony. He hadn't heard those words from anyone in years. It was disparaging to realize how much he needed them. They stared at each other, each realizing how little they now knew of the other, feeling the absolute loss of it. But their five minutes had ended, and with a parting glance the door snapped shut behind them both with harrowing finality.

Draco didn't return from the ministry until late that night. His whole body ached with the weight of emotions pounding through him like an unrelenting avalanche. He walked through the portrait hole feeling like he could collapse. His thoughts were too crowded with all the words he should have said. Hermione glanced up from her book with a playful smile that disintegrated from her face faster than a heartbeat. He heard her say his name, but it was just an echo in his ears, distant and terrible. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. His world was collapsing, fading away, slain, unmoving, gone forever. Then her arms were around him, holding him so tenderly and so close, and it was as if it all erupted back into color. Like her very touch was a cure.

He pulled her against him hard, never wanting to release his grip. He, who had always been forced to rely on himself, who depended on his loneliness, needed her. She pulled back after a moment, her hands lightly brushing across his cheeks. Her eyes were so filled with care and worry that he could have drowned in their brown depths. Without thinking, he bent, tangling his fingers in her curls and pulled her to him. Fire burned through his every nerve as he kissed her perfect lips. The heat of her pressing herself closer to him, eliminating any distance between their bodies, made him growl with raw lust. She wove her hands into his soft, pale hair, pulling at it and kissing him back recklessly, as if sensing that he needed this.

Suddenly, he grasped her thighs, lifting her from the floor as she wrapped her legs tight around his waist. She was pressed so deliciously close to him. He gently bit at her bottom lip, losing himself in her intoxicating scent. When he ran his tongue across her throat, he was rewarded with her gasp of pleasure. A second later he captured her lips once again, deepening the kiss, needing the taste of her, every fiber of his body electrified and desiring her. He moved, walking them up the stairs and kicking open the door to his room. In a moment, he had her pinned against the bed. She ran her hands up his back, across his broad muscular shoulder, savoring every inch of him. The feelings it elicited in him were overwhelming. She wanted him. She wanted him. Wait – quickly, he pulled away, his silver eyes piercing into her brown ones, their heavy breaths the only sounds between them. He looked at her, so beautiful, her hands still caught in his hair, and he realized it.

"I don't want you as a sacrificial lamb." His voice was quiet, sincere. She almost told him she didn't feel that way, that she was no lamb, but she said nothing instead, knowing he wouldn't believe her, because he believed too strongly in her pureness. He bent his head, and after a few moments, she felt his tears falling onto her skin. He slowly sank down onto her chest, quiet sobs escaping his lips, and she wrapped her arms around him and held him as he cried, her heart aching desperately, until sweet sleep took their minds away.

Eight days. He woke wrapped in her arms, and no morning had felt more like home.

He didn't dare move, didn't dare break the moment, knowing it would likely never come again. In the dusty gray light filtering in through his window, he could not distinguish between their heartbeats. He inhaled deeply, reveling in the sweet, lilac scent that lingered on her, always. Her hair was coppery brown in the morning light, the curls falling gracefully over her small shoulders. She was tucked against his chest, her arms clinging to his body, their legs interlaced, the warmth of her better than any blanket. She shifted slightly in his arms, and he closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep until she carefully untangled herself from him and crept away. As he heard his door shut almost inaudibly, the morning began to feel empty, and he wondered when he had fallen so very hopelessly and unrestrainedly in love with her. With every beautiful piece of her.

Seven days.

Six days.

Five days. Neither of them spoke about that night, only felt the change it created between them. Draco noted that Hermione seemed to be patiently waiting for him to talk to her, to open himself up to her. He wondered how long that patience would last. Instead, they spoke of other things that somehow felt no less personal. People are learned in the ways they speak, the words they choose, their silences and significant glances, the careful movements of their hands. Every moment between them felt charged and deep, every time their eyes met, it was searing with the intensity of what they felt.

Four days. She cracked.

"Malfoy, what happened?" He needed no further words to know what she was talking about. All the doors inside him snapped shut. He couldn't fucking help it. He glanced away from her, as if he could make her question disappear that way.

"Please. Talk to me, I – I care about you." There was a desperation lacing her voice that made him feel sick with himself.

"Is that so? You care about me?" He scoffed. "Don't confuse your curiosity with actual concern." He glared at her, his eyes filled with practiced malice.

"Stop being such an idiot," she said, her face appalled. "You don't have to be cruel just because you can't figure yourself out." Her voice was quiet, but her eyes danced with anger. Bitterness flashed in his eyes as he stalked up to her.

"I am not some hero in disguise. You don't go through the things I have gone through, do the things I've done, and come out of it a good person. I am cruel because that is what I am." Before he had a chance to flee, she had grabbed him by his shirt, yanking him close to her.

"Shut up, Malfoy. Shut up. I know you're no hero, none of us are. But you are not a monster. You can lose sight of yourself with everything going on. That's fine. I don't blame you. You've already lost so much, and now your father. But I won't. I won't lose sight of the person I've come to know. To care desperately about. So if you have to be angry and hate the world, then go ahead. I will still be here." The breath had left him by the time she finished and he stood there dumbly until she released him and walked away. He was afraid to think so, but maybe it was possible that not every home crumbled to ashes in his hands.

Three days. She filled his thoughts like clouds fill the sky on a rainy day. But from those clouds fell a maelstrom of doubts and fears. It seemed that loving someone is such a wicked act against yourself.

Two days. Every fucking hour was achingly slow.

One day. Draco looked carefully at his reflection in the mirror. Dark circles colored under his eyes. He was barely holding it together, and he could see it with pitiful clarity. Every day just felt like another lost battle. He wondered how many more blows he could take before he couldn't take another. With a deep breath, he turned away, feeling a strange calm settle into his stomach. He walked out of the bathroom and into his room, stopping in front of the dresser and opening the top drawer. He pulled out a shirt, his fingers brushing past what the muggles called a gun.