Disclaimer and Notes can be found in Chapter 1

Counting Stars and Passing Cars 14/14

Hermione/Draco

Inspiration: Ashes and Wine

Her bookshelves are bare.

That, more than anything else, tells Draco she's really going through with this. Her vast library is packed away in boxes, waiting to be moved to the flat where she will live with him, Ron Weasley, the man she is going to marry on Saturday.

For a moment, he considers burning her new home down, leaving no nest for the lovebirds, and thinks no man who has ever been in love and lost would condemn him. Instead, he opens the last bottle of wine he can find in her kitchen and sits at her table to read the binder he found in her bedroom, the one with Wedding Planner written across the front in her neat handwriting. There is page after page of appointments and reminders, all checked off or annotated. He familiarizes himself with her life. Tonight, she is picking up her bridal attendants' gifts. Tomorrow, she moves into her parents' house until after the ceremony, leaving her belongings for Potter and the Weasleys to move while she's on her honeymoon.

The thought of Hermione shutting the front door for the last time and putting this place behind her forever burns through him. He tastes ashes in his throat. They were lovers here. Together, they christened every room when she moved in. He hung fairy lights around the windows for her on their first Christmas together. He served her the first food he cooked himself—runny eggs and burnt toast—at this very table after she refused to let him summon an elf from the Manor to do the cooking…and she somehow choked it down. This is where they loved, laughed, spent lazy Sundays in bed with the Prophet, and planned for a future together. This is where they stopped talking and started screaming, where they cried, and where it all fell apart.

After tomorrow, this place and everything that happened in it will be just a memory. He drinks directly from the bottle, sick at the thought. If she moves out, she moves on.

He takes another swig, ignoring the little voice in his mind that whispers Just like you did, even though she begged you not to go.

He tells himself it's different, that he did what he had to do, that he has been shackled by duty from birth and has never had the same freedom she enjoys.

Did you think she'd wait in this flat for you forever?

Maybe. He certainly thought she would still love him as he loves her and that that would preclude her marrying any other man. He thought, in time, that she would change her mind, and they could be together again. And perhaps this is not such a hopeless dream, for aren't there signs that she has not forgotten him—wards that still open at the sound of his voice, his favorite red on the wine rack? Maybe they still have a chance.

There is a shuffle and scrape from the hall outside, and she opens the door, juggling bags and pushing it shut behind her with her foot. He can see the moment she realizes she is not alone, the instant when instinct freezes her in her tracks before she drops the bags and whips her wand from her sleeve. She takes a defensive stance and points the wand at his head.

He takes another drink.

"Draco?" she whispers, her wand arm slowly dropping to her side.

"Hermione. It's been a while."

"Been a—" She stalks to the table and pulls the planner out of his hands. "How dare you? Breaking and entering? Going through my things? I should have you arrested."

He shrugs. "You'd be within your rights."

She holds the planner against her chest, folding both arms across it. "I told you to never come back. Why are you here?"

"To see you one last time. To see if you were really going through with it." Nerves gnaw the edges of his wine-induced calm, and he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. "To see if there's still any chance for us."

"There is no chance! You're married! You left me, and you married Asteria Greengrass so you'd have a pureblood heir to make your parents happy." The planner is thrown to the floor. "You left me, Draco. You have no right to be here questioning my commitment to Ron. I'm marrying him on Saturday because I love him."

He feels his head shaking back and forth, denying her words. "You used to love me."

"And you used to love me. Not enough, mind you, to choose me over your family traditions."

"I still love you!"

"Don't."

He flattens his hands to the table to keep them from clenching up. "I told you. I had to marry Asteria. It was all arranged. It doesn't mean that I don't still love you and want to be with—"

"Don't!" She holds her hands up. "I don't want to hear this again. It means nothing. You think you made the only choice you could. I know I made mine," she says fiercely.

She's gone, lost to him, and he knows it as plainly as he sees the empty bookshelves around them, but part of him clings to hope. If he could just find the right thing to say, isn't there a chance she could change her mind? "Hermione…"

Her face is like stone, and he founders.

"Can't we just talk?"

"You want to talk?" She shakes her head in disbelief. With a flick of her wand, two wine glasses appear on the table before him. "Pour the wine, Draco. We'll have a toast."

He fills each glass. "To us?" and hope burns in his heart.

"To your wife. To my husband-to-be. And to the choices we made." She raises her glass and takes a long swallow, but he can't bring himself to follow suit. The label of the bottle catches his eye.

"This is my favorite vintage. I was happy to find it in your kitchen." When everything else is packed away, this was still in the rack as if it was waiting for us to drink it together. You must be thinking of me, you must be—

She takes another sip. "Drink up then, Draco."

He obeys—

"I was just leaving it here for the next tenants anyway. I didn't want it anymore."

—and all he tastes is ashes.

Shut it out
I've got no claim on you now
Not allowed to wear your freedom down

Is there a chance?
A fragment of light at the end of the tunnel?
A reason to fight?
Is there a chance you may change your mind,
Or are we ashes and wine?

Ashes and Wine
A Fine Frenzy

END

A/N: It began with Dramione and now it ends with Dramione. Sorry it's on such a sad note! Thanks so much to everyone who read, favorited, alerted, and, especially, reviewed this collection. I really appreciate it!