Chapter 38

"I used to come here to play and be alone when I was younger. I don't think anyone else in my family knows this is here. There were times I'd stay here until after dark and when I got home my mother would be crying and telling me how worried she'd been that no one could find me," said Draco as he ran a hand along a wall of the little cave. "Come on." He waved her deeper into his secret hiding place. When they reached as far inside as they could go without crawling, Draco spread his hands out in a gesture to sit.

Hermione sank cross-legged to the hard packed dirt floor and lit her wand. She rested it to her side, pulling her bag from her shoulder. Draco sat directly in front of her, waiting to see what she had found. She opened the bag and pulled out the map, setting it on top of Harry's cloak.

"What's that?" asked Draco, pointing to the map.

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just something of Harry's that I needed to borrow." Draco may be a different person than he was three months ago, but that didn't mean Hermione trusted him. He would no doubt rat Harry out about the map if it suited him.

The next thing out of the bag was the quidditch robe. She handed it caringly to Draco. "I have no idea why she had this, I didn't even know she did, but it must have been special to her."

Draco's eyes lit up and a small smile stole across his face. "It was from the first time we skived together. It was raining and she wanted to dance in the rain. I dragged her down to the quidditch pitch after an argument. We were both soaked to the skin. She was so cold her lips were turning blue so I took her into the locker room and put this on her to warm her up." He lifted the robe and smelled it. "It still smells like her."

Hermione gave him a tender smile and nodded, she remembered Keely telling her about that day, but she never told her she kept the robe. "Yes, it does." She reached back into the bag and pulled out a folder. "These are the notes you wrote to her."

Draco's eyes widened in surprise. "She kept them all?"

Hermione nodded while she considered him carefully. "Of course she did. She loves you. And according to those notes, you love her, too."

Draco blushed. "You read them?"

"No, I didn't have to, to know what they said. I would walk into our room to find Keely sitting in the middle of her bed, grinning like the Cheshire cat. She said they were notes from you. I didn't think they were hate notes." She really smiled at Draco then. "I don't want to embarrass you, but she did read a few of them to me." Her smile brightened even more at the memories of her friend's happiness. "I have to admit, I didn't think you were capable of such feelings." She handed him the folder of notes.

He took it and set it on his lap on top of the robe.

Next she handed him a clear little plastic bag containing a dried daisy. "This is one of the flowers you gave her while she was in hospital. She asked me to press it for her. Unfortunately she never got to see the finished project," she said sadly.

He added the flower to the pile.

Hermione stared at him intently. When he noticed he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, but," she pulled out a sketch book, "did you know Keely could draw?"

Draco looked curious. "No, she never said anything about it, and I never saw her draw anything."

"Hmm. I didn't know either, actually. I think she must have used this as her diary." She handed him the book. "Take a look at Keely's innermost thoughts." She continued as Draco accepted it. "The only thing I can think of as the reason she didn't tell me she could do this was because she already confided to me everything that's in there. I guess drawing is hers and hers alone. That or she's embarrassed because she thinks she's rubbish at it."

"Probably the latter," said Draco reverently as he looked through her sketches. "She doesn't realize just how special and talented she really is." He stared dumbstruck at the images before him. She captured their first kiss in the deserted hallway in perfect detail, and just below it was Snape's flooded classroom. She was lying on top of him after he slipped and pulled her down. The next one was of her, himself and Snape. She was laughing while he and Snape stared at her in what could only be described as incredulous awe.

Hermione watched him in silence as he took a tour of the last couple of months of Keely's mind. She could tell when he reached a picture of an actual memory of the two of them because he would smile or blush slightly. He didn't spend much time on the pictures that didn't include him, though admittedly there were few of those.

He frowned then and Hermione took a peek at what he was looking at. She suspected as much. It was one of the last ones. It was a picture of her and Fred sitting on the grass, smiling at each other in front of the Black Lake. "That was the day Fred told her that he forgave her. The day before she was put in hospital," she explained.

Draco nodded in understanding, his frown lessening as he turned the page. The next picture was not something that had actually happened, but it was apparent that it was something she clearly wanted to happen. They were holding hands, while with his free hand he was shaking Fred's. The last drawing took up two whole pages as though it were a centerfold. It was a picture of all of them, the Weasleys, Harry, Hermione, him and Keely. She had her head on his shoulder, eyes closed with a contented smile on her face while he looked down at her with obvious love in his eyes. The others were gathered around them, smiling and laughing without the tiniest hint of ire in any of them. He stared at it for a long moment before running the back of his middle finger down the drawing of her cheek. He grimaced at the wrenching pain in his heart and lifted his head, pulling in a deep breath through his nose while he closed the book in finality.

When he next opened his eyes Hermione could see the tears shining in them and she could no longer hold in her own. She placed a friendly hand on his tense forearm. He looked up at her and he looked so much like a lost child that she wanted to throw her arms around him to comfort him and let him cry on her shoulder. "Draco," she started. "Are you sure you want to do this? We could find another way."

"There is no other way," he said dejectedly. "There's nothing else that could ever work. Not while You Know Who is still alive. I would try to kill him myself, but that would only get me killed and then he would have her. I've been thinking of nothing but a way to get Keely out of this mess from the time my father made me lock her up. This is the only thing I could think of."

Hermione shook her head in denial. "But you're so good for her. You have no idea how happy you made her. She would come back to our room after the time the two of you spent together and go on for hours about you, she's never done that about anyone before. There were times I was sure she was talking about someone else, because the things she said couldn't possibly have been about the Draco Malfoy." A tear ran down her cheek. "And Draco, please don't be offended, but you're a better person now. A person I actually think I could be friends with. She's the best thing that's ever happened to you."

He stared at her intently. "I know she is. That's why I have to do this," he said in a solemn tone. "If I don't, I'll lose her altogether, he'll destroy her. And if we tried to run like my father wanted, he wouldn't stop looking until he found us and he'd still have her. At least this way I can watch her from across the Great Hall or in Potions. I'll be able to see her smile, hear her laugh and know that she's free. If she and I had never gotten together, Pansy would have never told her parents or mine, so she'd still be at school. Then You Know Who would never have found out about her in the first place. Setting her free is the least I can do for her after everything she's done for me." His voice cracked through the last sentence and Hermione was to him in an instant. She threw her arms around his neck as she cried for her best friend and the man she loved. Draco sat stunned for just a moment before tentatively wrapping his arms around the best friend of the woman he loved more than life itself.