Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger

Setting: half-blood prince au

Word Count: 411

Tag: for #dhrfavorites jan 2016 favorite antagonist

He was always reluctant, always stubbornly plead to her; his fingers would always hold on a little tighter before they had to let the trail of her hair go before it would hurt. "So early?"

"It's late." Ceremoniously tossing an absent glance at the clock that didn't tell the time they actually cared about, she was already zipping up the sweater that he had disposed onto the floor just to exposure her to him, just as he wanted for her.

"When are you leaving?" If it meant he had to beg, just one more time, he would.

"If I told you, I would have to kill you." Reflexively, she belittled the ill-timed humour and blamed it on her irrational mind.

It could never happen with us, could it? How some people just couldn't get away without wrecking damage to each other. Maybe the reason we'd decided to play with fire was because we thought we could stop after we tasted the pain. Maybe that's why I had let you touch me with the heat enough to scorch, to mark, to last.

His heart thumped as she bit her lip hard enough there was blood. "Gryffindor, one last time?" he whispered, extending his arm. If only he could tell anyone later, the curse that slashed his chest open hurt so much less than this; and how he wished the spell worked, and how it felt to finally put a shadow of what her rejection had done to him because then they were real.

"That's what we've always said for the last fifty times." Fifty-eight times, his eyes replied, and she closed hers briefly and dragged a breath in.

It killed us, didn't it? How we felt the same, how we would rather let the aftermath bury us than let what we feel perform a closed-casket funeral. Maybe that's why I stay awake at night, under the covers long enough it becomes hard to breathe, just thinking about you and imagine how it would feel to die that way.

"Will I ever see you again?" Draco almost choked on his own breath and just like every time, pretended he was clearly his throat instead, swallowing everything he wanted to say.

I love you. Don't leave.

Can a heart still break when it stopped beating?

I would have done anything for you, do you know that?

Hermione backed away, frost falling into the depth of her eyes, "See you on the other side, Slytherin."

A/N: ... and just because i'm projecting, it had to be upon them and hauled the blame onto themselves.