Chasing Cars
"If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
and just forget the world?"
Snow Patrol

July 12th, 2001

There were two rooms in Grimmauld Place with balconies, both on the highest floor of the house. Mad-Eye Moody had enchanted the pair so that they would be invisible to those outside the property and protected from any attacks on the house. Any time that Order members breathed air that hadn't been encased in that house for the twenty-odd years it was empty was either when they were fighting for their lives on a mission or out on one of those balconies.

Draco was leaning against the right balcony rail, causing the dark ivy that crawled up the side wall to turn different colours. The house inside was complete chaos, and after putting in his two cents, the former-Slytherin came outside to take a break from the pandemonium.

Apparently Seamus had the same idea, as he came out onto the left balcony across from Draco and brandished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

"All the people in there are mad," the Irishman said, placing the cigarette between his lips and reaching for his wand. "Why they won't listen to me I'll never understand. Death Eaters are heartless—not brainless."

"Wood just likes a good argument," Draco replied. "You'll have your way eventually."

"I doubt it," Seamus said as he lit the cigarette with the tip of his wand. "Want one?"

The blonde shrugged. "Why not."

Seamus tossed the box over the rails and Draco caught it one-handedly, pulling out a cig and throwing the box back. "Thanks, Finnegan."

"Ever smoked before?" Seamus asked as the other man lit up and took a long drag. It burned his throat and lungs, but it calmed his nerves and he refused to cough.

"Not really. Why?" Draco said, blowing out a stream of smoke.

"It's sort of a muggle thing. The only reason I do it is because of me dad."

Draco's brow furrowed.

"Half-blood, remember?"

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Really not good for you, in all honesty. Ought to quit. Maybe when this fucking war ends, and I'm not as stressed about kicking the bucket all the time."

The former-Slytherin nodded sombrely, and there was a short silence between the pair.

"So… what's up with you and Hermione?"

Draco shot a glance to the other wizard, and Seamus let out a low chuckle. "Just because we're fighting for our lives, Malfoy, doesn't mean we no longer gossip. Plus, that stunt you pulled a month ago at the Order meeting has had everyone talking."

The blonde flicked some ash from the end of his cigarette. "Nothing at all," he said. "Just doing what any other self-respecting Order member would have done."

Seamus scoffed. "Yeah, right. Let's be honest with each other. You fancy her."

"Not true. It wouldn't be right or proper of me. And, even if I did fancy her, she'd never fancy me back. She can hardly even wake up in the morning anymore."

Seamus shrugged. "Harry doesn't seem to have a problem with it."

"Well, Potter never was the sharpest knife in the drawer, was he?"

"You're an idiot, Malfoy. I mean, obviously you shouldn't make any moves yet, because she's still messed up from the terrifying shit at the Manor and honestly, she's broken. But once she's better, I think you might have a shot."

"How can you say that and be friends with Ron Weasley at the same time?"

"Don't get me wrong—I was completely against the idea when it first came upon these lovely ears of mine. But after you proved not to be a complete asshole, after Harry showed a little support… and then I saw the way you look at her… it reminded me of how Ron would look at her. And she needs that now, more than ever." Seamus shrugged. "Not my business, I suppose, but wartime is not a time known for people respecting other people's privacy."

' ' '

April 28th, 2002

I'm missing something. Something important. Good God, what the hell is it?

Hermione jolted into consciousness, ripping herself from Draco's grip and pulling her eyelids apart. Jesus Christ, why can't I remember?

"Hermione?" Draco said, waking up instantly. "Hermione, what's wrong?"

It took her a moment to find her words. "I… I don't know when my parents died. I think I missed it. Dammit, Draco, what if I missed their death date? Why can't I remember?" the brunette said frantically, wrapping her arms around herself. "What if I missed Ron's?" she moaned. "How could I miss their death dates? What kind of daughter am I? What kind of friend am I?"

Draco's heart-rate doubled. She missed their death dates because of me. Goddammit, why am I still so selfish around her?

She didn't seem to consider this fact, though, as a frenzied, thoughtful look came over her face. "It… it was just turning to spring... it was rainy that day, really gloomy, but you could practically smell the sunshine hiding behind the clouds… late March, maybe? Mid-April?" Hermione plunged her face into her hands. "Dammit, why don't I know this? Ron… Ron was… a month later? God, why can't I remember?"

But Draco remembered. His wits returned and the date flew to the front of his mind. Potter had told him when they found his body. "You didn't miss Weasley's," he assured, her. "It's in five days."

She seemed to calm down slightly after this. "Oh, thank God. Thank God. Mum, Dad, please forgive me. Please forgive me," she whispered over and over again.

She missed her parent's death dates because of me. Why am I so self-centred around her? I'm being self-centred even now, thinking of me when I should be thinking of her. What's wrong with me, dammit?

He approached her from behind, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I've been selfish. So extremely selfish."

She whipped around to face him. "You are anything but selfish, Draco Malfoy."

"You're too kind to me. I've let you forget something that should never be forgotten. I've made you forget." Both were quiet.

"I'll take you to him, if you'd like," Draco offered suddenly. "If you think you can… handle it, I'll take you."

Her eyes watered and she took his face in her hands. "That would mean so much to me. If you wouldn't mind…"

"Never," he said immediately. "Never."

They ate a quick breakfast of cereal and milk, and grabbing their cloaks and their wands, locked up the apartment. "Pull up your hood," Draco told her before they apparated. "No one needs to know you're out and about, especially not reporters from the Prophet. Yes, they are still running, but just barely. Don't leave my line of sight. I can't protect you if I can't see you."

"Where… where is he buried?" Hermione asked.

"In a small wizard's cemetery outside Ottery St. Catchpole," he replied. Please don't ask about the Burrow. Please don't ask about the Burrow, Draco thought frantically, and fate smiled on him, for Hermione said not another word.

There was the queasy sensation one experiences during apparition and then they were at the entrance to the cemetery, grave markers poking up from the ground across a grassy field. The edge of the town could be seen on the horizon, though Hermione didn't look at it at all as Draco pushed open the screeching gate and ushered her through. The grave-yard was empty, thank Merlin.

It wasn't difficult to find Ron's grave. As tall as the brunette, covered completely in fresh flowers except for a bare patch in the dead centre, where the epitaph was etched, it was a truly fitting memorial for someone who died the way he did.

Draco watched as Hermione's eyes welled up and spilled over, though it was a silent crying—no heavy, racking sobs. Just quiet tears that rolled down her cheeks in the hauntingly beautiful way of those left behind.

"Would you like some time alone?" he murmured, taking her hand into his and squeezing it once. She nodded, let go, and fell to her knees in front of the stone, caressing the flowers that graced the marble. Draco took a step back and headed out into the cemetery, taking a walk among the gravestones while keeping her in sight all the while.

' ' '

Hermione knelt there for a long while, reading the epitaph over and over again. Just seeing those words made her choked up and teary. It was perfect. Molly must have picked it out.

Beneath this stone lies
Ron Bilius Weasley
who lived as a Gryffindor
and died as a Gryffindor

But most importantly
he loved
and was loved

Perhaps fifteen minutes passed—perhaps three hours. She couldn't tell. All she knew was that Draco was now out of earshot, and she had things that needed to be said.

Hermione began speaking to the monument, absent-mindedly stroking the scars on her face that had begun to fade, though the name she had etched into her skin was still legible. "Hey, Ron," she murmured. "I think about you every day. I miss you like crazy. I love you. Please, where ever you are, never forget how much I love you.

"I sang to you on your birthday," she said. "I don't know if you could hear me, but I remembered that, at least. It would be impossible for me to forget. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to get here. I haven't been in the best of health. And… well… I'm sorry if you're watching me. I've done things you probably don't want to see." She choked out a laugh.

"I've been ignoring everything these past few days. Shutting it all out. Focusing only on each moment, just the present. I haven't thought about the past, I haven't considered the future—though I probably should be, shouldn't I? Because soon the future's going to be the present, and I'll have no idea what the hell is going on." Hermione chuckled again.

"And I guess how this happened," the Gryffindor continued. "Why he, Draco Malfoy, of all people—" she pointed to where Slytherin was walking among the headstones, "—is here with me. Why it isn't Ginny, or Harry, or your mother… Because I've been living only in the present. But maybe it isn't the most terrible thing in the world. I mean, sure, eventually I'm going to have to go back to the past, contemplate the future, but maybe at this moment all I have to do is live now." She wiped at her eyes, as the tears were beginning to flow doubly hard, and made herself continue. I've got to get this out.

"Please, Ron, where ever you are, get mad at me, even though I might not hear. Yell at me, scream at me and tell me what a horrible person I am for feeling this way about him. Shout it so loud my ears ring, tell me how awful and crazy I am, because I deserve it. I'm terrible and revolting and I'm insane—say it all. I will take it, because I deserve it.

"But please, please don't ask me to stop. Don't ask me to walk away from him. Because he is the most beautiful person I have met since I fell in love with you. Before he started coming to see me, I was a wreck. I was destroyed. I woke up every day not knowing if I even wanted to keep breathing. And then he came into the picture. And yes, he was a completely dick at school. He was the most deplorable little snot-nosed snake I ever met. But God, Ron, if you understand nothing else understand this—he's changed. He really has, in the most beautiful way imaginable.

"I really don't think I could ever stop loving you. You're an irreversible part of my life—and I would never want to reverse it. But Draco has become just as irreversible. He's… a part of me now, as much as you were and are and will be. Please, please don't ask me to change that. Please don't ask me to leave him.

"And… just remember when I'm doing all those things you probably don't want to see, I still love you. I still miss you and I still wish you were here and I still think about your freckles and your laugh and the way you looked at me and how it made me want to smile and cry all at the same time, every time.

"In novels there's this whole idea that you can love two people at once. And the idea always seemed completely preposterous to me—until I started living it." Hermione rose to her feet and leaned forward, gently kissing the surface of the marble stone. "You're my beautiful past, and Draco is my beautiful future—though the difference makes neither of you lovelier than the other. I miss you terribly, Ron. I love you. Please don't forget it." Then she wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffed once. This was it. This was what she'd needed. This was her end and her beginning, the confession and realisation that had been bubbling up inside her, ready to burst, without her even knowing it.

"Draco," she called, turning around and searching the grave yard for the blonde. Instantly he was at her side.

"Yes, Hermione?"

"I… I think I'm done. How long has it been?"

He checked his watch. "Just under two hours. How… how do you feel?"

Hermione took a deep, shuddering breath. "Perfect," she replied. "Just perfect."

' ' '

There was a weeping willow in the east corner of the cemetery, where no one was buried and no head stones peeped from the ground. Hermione sat down under the whispering leaves and she could tell Draco was antsy, eager to leave.

She patted the ground beside her. "Sit, Draco," she implored. "You look like you're about to shoot off toward the gate."

"I'm fine," he replied, sitting down beside her, though his voice was shaky and nervous.

"Any reason why you're all jumpy right now?" Hermione asked conversationally, and the blonde laughed.

"I guess my walk around the grave-yard as made me a bit anxious," he replied. "You'd think fighting a war would help me get used to dead bodies."

The brunette's smile faded. "It never gets easier," she said, before leaning back against the soft grass. When she looked up she could see streams of sunlight pass through the drooping boughs of the tree. The sun had come out to say hello. She could feel it settle on her face. Briefly, a vision of the carnage she had witnessed at Malfoy Manor burst into her head, and she clamped her eyelids down tight, chasing the memory away. Hermione could feel Draco settle down beside her—his fingers laced through hers and the sides of their legs brushed slightly.

The wind blew gently against the bare skin of her hands and face, and the rustling leaves of the willow sang softly above them. Hermione sighed. "This is paradise." A pause. "Or as close as we're going to get."

He let out a weak chuckle, and she turned her head to face him. For a moment she couldn't say anything, the words clogged in her throat—he looked stunning. The sunlight lit up his features so he appeared to be glowing, and his eyelids had dropped to give him a peaceful look she hardly saw in him, now that she knew to look. His palm was smooth and warm and dry against hers.

Draco cracked open one eye. "What? Is there something on my face?"

Hermione giggled. "Just perfection."

He laughed, really laughed this time, a huge, full laugh that made her stomach do backflips and set her cheeks aflame. "So the great Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor Princess of Hogwarts School, has finally admitted the flawlessness of Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince?"

"Don't let it go to your head," she warned him jokingly.

"Wouldn't dream of it." He shook his head. "And you're wrong, for once. I'm far from perfect. Quite far," he informed her, and she squeezed his hand once.

"You're perfect to me. And that counts for something, doesn't it?"

He shook his head again. "I'm not perfect. I don't think I'll ever be. But you, Hermione—you're pretty damn close."

She could feel her face redden. "I beg to differ," the brunette said, and Draco knew it was pointless to argue.

Then they both turned back to the canopy of murmuring green, squinting at the beautiful sun that filtered through the leaves, and lie there in that way for a long time, wishing they could bottle that moment forever and forget the rest of the world.

But life, especially during war, is never so simple.

A/N:

Please do not hate me for the lateness, or the lack of sex, or the relative shortness of this chapter. I mean, I could have put it all in one chapter, but then the chapter would have been, like, 8000 or 9000 words long or something ludicrous like that, and it probably would have taken me two more weeks, since I am UBER busy this weekend and probably won't even write at all between Thursday night and Tuesday night next week. Plus, it just seemed wrong, having Hermione visit Ron's grave and then having sex with Draco in the same chapter. But I am sorry if this disappointed you.

Um... I did happen to tear up a bit when writing Hermione's little conversation with Ron... well, not so much writing it but reading it for errors...

Thanks to all you lovely people who reviewed/favourited/alerted, you guys are beautiful XD Thanks for reading and don't forget to tell me what you thought!

~Gen