[A/N: I am so sorry, and I hope everyone is doing well in these... I don't even know what to call these times. I never meant to let this amount of time go by before updating and finishing this story, but given the nature of this chapter and the next one... It was a bit too grueling to take on last year. I'm feeling in a safer, better place so I was finally able to write this. I hope, and intend, to write the next (and final) chapter soon. I wish you all the best, and hope this finds you well.]
It hurt. The first feeling to return to Hermione in the darkness was hurt. It tore her head and chest, pressing and screaming at her to come and heal the immeasurable wound. Hermione tried. But try as she might, the thought of waking hurt more than any laceration or loss— all except for one. The loss paining her heart the most had a name, a name her head could not put to words just yet; it was still struggling to name the physical aches tormenting Hermione's body. Concussion, fractured, broken— these words groggily came to mind as she tried to remember her limbs and where they all were. Slowly, she recalled the where: Hogwarts. There was a battle. She could hear it still. Though, the chaos was muffled by a barrier. The barrier jut into her skin; what was left of the Grand Entrance's ceiling had collapsed on her. She felt the cold stone, jagged glass and wood pushing down on her, trying to bury her. So why wasn't she dead?
It was warm. Terribly warm, and wet. Something dripped down her cheek. Something soft and heavy was wrapped around and fallen on her— shielding her head, crushing her ribs and right arm. Not stone. Not glass or wood. It was the pain she could not name.
Draco.
Her eyelids shot open. A thin sliver of morning light desperately reached for her through a pinhole in the rubble. She tried to use it to see, frantically trying to turn her head to the warmth at her right cheek. But the weight on her did not move, would not let her look upon its face— she could not see. She could smell iron, feel blood on her; she felt it pooling on her cheek, on her hands, seeping through her clothes to her stomach.
"Draco?" Hermione's voice splintered through the silence. The ruins replied, groaning and crumbling; her pain screamed. Panicked for comfort, Hermione grabbed at the weight atop her with her left hand and hugged the shape of a person.
"Draco?" she sobbed, madly wrestling to pull her trapped hand out from under the warm, wet heaviness of her protector. In Hermione's hand was her wand, which she so desperately needed to use. It was stuck. She was stuck. He was not moving. He was cold, yet it was so warm and wet where her hand, and her wand, touched him. And then, at last, Hermione's mind recalled the final moment before the fall: the fight, the feral rage with which she had lashed out in hopes of bleeding Bellatrix Lestrange, the fatal curse in Hermione's snarl, Draco calling her name.
Hermione's entire chest collapsed in a mangled cry.
"No, no, no," she stammered, then whimpered, and writhed to get out from the stone grave she'd made. "NO," she heaved and screeched, and yanked at her wand, trying to move it— until, like a trapped wild animal, she screamed without language. Hermione screamed, and the hell that caved them shuddered. It quaked from her wrath until it barely had the strength to quiver, and finally no strength at all. Stone, glass and wood— sudden as heartbreak, it all disintegrated into dust.
Open sky stared down at her, through the cracked ribs of the roof. Yet Hermione didn't find it any easier to breathe.
She could see now.
"Draco," she cried, wrapping her arms around him and scrambling, struggling to sit up with his weight atop her. Frenzied hands attempted to move the shattered porcelain of his body without losing it. Without losing him.
He was losing blood. Her hands were covered in it. So was her sweater— the blood on it was still wet, warmth fading. And Hermione's eyes landed on the source: Draco's clothes were sliced through at the waist, revealing not flesh but meat and blood. So much blood.
Hysterically, Hermione pressed her crimson hand onto the wound, demanding it stop. She pushed down harder, and cradled Draco's neck with her other hand to hold him up, to look at him properly. The sallow color and hollowness of him, his closed eyes— her heart keened and called to him, again. At last, Draco opened his eyes— Hermione could see him forcing the action, trying so hard to answer her call.
"Good, good," she cheered shakily, nodding her head at him and unwittingly releasing her tears; she blamed them for the faded look of him. But she knew. God, she knew. There was such fear in his eyes; and even that struggled to stay. "It's okay! It's going to be okay. Just stay with me, Draco."
Reaching for her wand, Hermione called for him, again, and fumbled to heal the horror away. Her mind scattered and ricocheted spells against her skull, but the only word to come from her mouth was his name, trying to keep his eyes open. Even if they were full of fear, she needed them open.
They drifted closed.
"No, no, no— please. I can't lose you too. Don't do this to me."— shaking, distraught, Hermione's hand grasped at his cheek. The other lost its grip on her wand, let it clatter and tumble away as her fingers splattered over his trauma. The spell she knew was needed pulsed in her blood, ready to bleed into him, desperate to work. It had to.
It never has.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Hermione hissed pitifully at her shadow, the hand at Draco's waist shooting up to hit her head, touching blood. Her blood. She took that pain and used it. Traced it over Draco's wound in the shape of a star and chanted.
"Reducam quod contritum est."
She stared at the wound, at the ring on her finger drenched in Draco's blood. She traced the star and fervently chanted the spell again. And again. A mantra, a broken prayer. Her throat tired of her, and so did her body. She collapsed forward, wetly kissing Draco's forehead and squeezing her eyes shut. And in the darkness, she felt it. The spell coiled around them both. She opened her eyes and saw it. A soft, familiar glow of silver light, so similar to her ring, seeped out of the wound and wrapped around her hand, as though to hold it. Draco's soul. She refused to let go.
"Promise me you won't go," she demanded of Draco, as he held her in her bedroom. The seaside sun at Hermione's back, on Draco's face— it burned her and illuminated him. His skin flushed and his hair lit, youthful starfire in front of her eyes. She kissed him, wanting to glow as he did.
"I'll stay," he said into her lips. The words tasted like sunlight. "I won't go. I promise."
The glow faded. Her ring faded.
"No."
Hermione shook her head, crazed and heart beating itself bloody against her ribs. She looked at Draco, at him unconscious on her shoulder. Gravel and blood marked his face, his skin pale. Too pale.
"No," she moaned.
"What should I draw on his face?" Ron whispered.
"Don't you dare." Hermione's gentle smile undermined the warning. They were gathered in the living room, the fire dwindling down for the night, yet no one moved to go to bed. Least of all Hermione, who sat still with Draco's head on her shoulder. He had fallen asleep in the midst of their chatter, his cheek pressed warm and sweet on the sleeve of her wedding dress. Gingerly, she reached for him and stroked blonde strands out of his eyes. In his sleep, Draco's lips dreamily twitched upwards. His hand entwined in hers flexed, holding tighter and his wedding ring pressing warm into her skin. Hermione's little smile unraveled, widening painfully. Wonderfully.
The two entwined strands of silver on her wedding ring began to unravel. "No!" Hermione raged, raising her hand and bringing it to Draco's chest. She clutched and shook at him. "You promised! You promised to stay!"
Draco kissed the ring she wore. He lingered there, resting in the palm of her hand, smiling. "Always."
The ring turned to string. "We made a deal." Blood-stained, feeble string. "You promised." Hermione's body trembled, her voice fragile as she looked to her husband, caressed his face, and pleaded. "Please stay. Please."
"You did the best you could. You did well— so well."
She held his face, and Draco leaned into her hand. He let out a shaky sigh against her thumb, his lips brushing on her skin and his eyes searching hers. Seeing the same feeling, the same exhaustion from running, fighting, losing... and the same fear of not having done enough this time. He hesitantly breathed, "I did... I did, didn't I?"
Hermione's hands gripped at Draco, clutching him to her bent frame as she pressed her lips to his forehead, his closed eyes, his cheeks, his lips— in relentless search of the strength and warmth she remembered him by. But nothing she kissed felt like Draco. He felt too delicate in her arms, too cold. Hermione's body shuddered and her kisses shattered in his soft hair, into feeble strands of sound— pleas.
"Please, stay, Draco. Please. Stay, stay, stay," she crooned as she cradled him, rocking him back and forth.
But he was gone.
It hurt. And her mind could not put words to the pain, not even his name.
Soundlessly, Hermione remained with that pain and gazed at him. As one would gaze at a star, knowing it was dead. Already gone, yet somehow still there. Still a sight to behold. Hermione beheld her dead star, held him to her, not wanting to let go. But the morning light shone over her mourning. The battle drummed on. A curse crashed into the staircase and shook the landing. Hermione clutched Draco tighter, shut her eyes, tears storming down her cheeks.
"Stop, just stop," she choked as another curse shot out, and voices billowed from the Great Hall. "Please, please, please—"
"Hermione!" It was Ginny, distant— rushing closer, the clambor of footsteps up the stairs affronting Hermione's ears. She winced. Winced harder as hands grabbed at her. Ginny's voice shook as she said, "Hermione, no, please, come on."
"Nagini is dead!" a voice called victoriously from below — Neville. More footsteps. Some retreating, others fighting on. More spells crashed into Hermione's surroundings, making everything shatter. But she held on, and begged.
"Make it stop."
"Hermione, I know." Ginny's hands tried again to pull Hermione to safety. Her touch was tired, determined, afraid. Hermione could hear Ginny's tears. "I know, Hermione."
Hermione had carelessly forgotten; she wasn't the only one in love with a corpse.
Still, she shook her head at Ginny's attempts to pry her away from Draco. She couldn't leave him. She had never promised him she'd stay, but — she had to. She had to stay—
"Ginny." The pain she could not put to words bled out in her friend's name. She finally opened her eyes and looked at Ginny. Saw her pain reflected. Ginny nodded; her hands reached for Draco. Hermione let her. Let Ginny lift Draco's weight off her, to carry him with her. Hermione pushed herself up, stood and reached for Draco— and she yelped. She staggered, her leg betraying her. Broken?
There was a thunderous shattering from inside the Great Hall.
"We need to move!" Ron shouted from the bottom of the stairs. He scrambled up the rubble, Neville and Luna behind him deflecting any attacks from the scattering Death Eaters. Though the fight appeared to be dwindling, the enemy refused to leave without destroying everything.
Yet it was one look from Ginny that destroyed what was left of Hermione.
"I'm sorry," Ginny said as Ron reached them. He grabbed Hermione's arm. He lifted her, carried her away, as Ginny laid Draco down to rest in the remains.
At the bottom of the stairs, Ron sat Hermione down and yanked out his wand to heal her leg. In a daze, Hermione looked toward the curses Ginny, Neville and Luna continued to fight against. Death Eaters flung the curses as they retreated out of the Great Hall and out the door of the school.
Yet, two figures pushed past the deserters, pale blonde hair lighting the darkness, desperate eyes searching the fleeing faces. And then the two figures stopped. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy stood in the doorway. Their eyes locked onto the stair landing.
Numbly, Hermione turned to look there too, to see the sight that froze Lucius's spirit and scorched Narcissa's heart: their son, bloodied and dead and discarded. And Hermione searched for reason in the devastation. Bellatrix's lifeless arm jut out from beneath the collapsed stones. Her darkness pooled out of her like blood and reached Draco's body. Loomed over it. Changed shape. Hermione stared at her own shadow. Waited for it to sneer, laugh, scold her. It stood silent.
"Murderer!" Narcissa howled. The Banshee cry cursed the air. It clawed at Hermione's skin, and she welcomed the grief. She looked at Narcissa, charging forward in all her fury, and welcomed death by a mother's hand. His mother. Hermione stood and stepped forward to greet the punishment with open arms.
But Narcissa's death scream flew elsewhere. Draco's mother lunged for the Great Hall, where Voldemort had ruptured through the outer wall and severed the sea of witches and wizards. He turned at the harrowing sound, catching the sight of Narcissa's wand raised against him—
Like his son before him, Lucius lurched forward to protect his wife. Hermione flinched; Draco's father was on the ground, where Draco's mother would've been. Livid, Voldemort aimed for Narcissa as she wailed. But then there was a voice that stilled him, made him turn. Harry stood at the center of the Great Hall. Alive.
Hermione collapsed.
She did not recover. Not when she awoke, bandaged and laid in a cot surrounded by cries of joy and heartache, Harry's hand in hers. Nor when she stood in the Forbidden Forest, and watched her friends dig a makeshift grave to bury her love in.
In silence, Harry and Ron lowered a plain casket into the dirt. No different to any of the other caskets buried that morning, it was easy to imagine another's loved one inside. Easier still without Draco's parents there to mourn; Narcissa had disappeared the moment Harry returned. Hermione felt herself disappear, too, into the unmarked casket. She sank into the sunlit earth, smelt the wood and dirt as it fell atop her, and suffocated in the darkness.
Something rooted around her shoulders. Ginny's arm. She eased her head upon Hermione's shoulder, as though to gently plant her. Hermione did not bud in response.
"Mum said we'll all stay at Grimmauld Place today," Ginny stated quietly. Hermione had been there for that conversation, laid in the cot while Molly tearfully collected what remained of her family and planned a happier future for them. Ginny assumed, rightly, Hermione had not listened then. She barely had the energy to listen now. "We'll properly wash up and eat there. Properly sleep. And tomorrow…"
Ginny's head sunk into Hermione's bones. Her friend sighed. Harry lifted the blanket of soil, to cover Draco in it. Hermione closed her eyes.
"We'll wake up," Hermione said. She opened her eyes; the grave was set. "We'll keep moving."
Ginny squeezed her shoulder, hugging her. Nurturing her. "Together," she added.
"Mm. Together. Tomorrow. Just..." The promise Ginny expected to grow with that word... did not. It lay dormant at the bottom of Hermione's stomach, a heavy seed of burden. As Harry and Ron settled Draco's headstone, it punctured her chest. She let out a singular upheaving breath. "Not today."
Once done, Harry and Ron stood on either side of the grave, unsure of themselves. They looked horrific; tired, scabbed and at a loss of how to heal. They all were. So, her friends knew better than to draw out the ceremony with speeches or disingenuous hope. Harry and Ron wordlessly left to meet the rest of the Weasleys where they waited just on the other side of the trees. Ginny, however, remained with Hermione. She turned and hugged her entirely, wrapping her up— unaware of how it strangled.
"I'm sorry." Ginny's condolences were unsteady, but sincere.
"I know." However, Hermione could not accept the apology for the same reason Ginny gave it: while the love of Ginny's life had risen from the dead, Hermione's had not.
So Hermione waited, long after Ginny and the others left, for a resurrection— the punch line to the awful joke, the prank to be over and for Draco to laugh at her for being so easily duped. Grey clouds of time passed overhead; yet, she stood in wait of the dawn long into the dead of night. Resolved to feel his heartbeat underfoot.
There was a thud, and then another. Though, it was the feet of animals, not the approaching soul of a lover. Not unlike her lover, they were haunting beings tied to the dark; yet, they showed themselves to her as plain as day. Hollow, starved, gentle, shadowlike horses stepped out into the clearing— a small gathering of the creatures she once had the naivety to not see. Thestrals. They had arrived to cart Draco off, to announce she was thoroughly alone with death.
I'd be careful, if I were you, Draco had warned her in this very forest, looking away from the beasts of burden only he had seen at the time; his eyes had shifted from one omen of his death to the other— Hermione. You can only see so much before it changes you.
Hermione's resolve broke in waves. She stared at the thestrals and frothed with resentment. They watched Hermione with kindness, and a strange kindredness, as she crashed into rocks of grief. She hunched over from impact and cupped her mouth, damming the cries. But the waves were relentless and wore her composure down to sand. This was death and loss— a slow and unyielding erosion.
A landslide of guilt threw Hermione to the ground; she had watched Draco die; she had caused Draco's death; it was her fault; her curse had cut him down; her darkness had snuffed out his light. She was a murderer.
She was a widow.
Hermione's fingers clawed into the dirt, into her husband's grave. And the earth shuddered, an earthquake of her rage threatening to ravage the forest. She was too young to be burying a husband here. Too young to have a husband at all. And Draco— Draco could not be dead. He was just a boy. They were just supposed to be kids. Stupid teenagers making stupid mistakes, confusing crushes for love. Not being crushed by the weight of lost love.
The weight was too much, too contradictory; loss swelled inside her, and gravity pulled it and her down to the ground. It caved her insides. Fractured ribs and broken bones magic had just healed were destroyed anew. She cowered and screamed into the earth until roots ruptured and her throat cracked. Hermione thought to stop the Earth entirely, to make it reverse course and fix what nature had gotten wrong.
"None of this," she sobbed to the dirt, "none of it was supposed to happen. Take it back. Just take it— " Hermione's voice left her and buried itself. So Hermione lay down to remain with it, and with Draco.
Go home, another voice stepped in. It was not the usual, cruel reprimand of her shadow. No, it whispered softly, tragically inside her head— the same head she dug into the grave. It sounded so painfully like Draco that she closed her eyes and tried to hear it again. The voice warily obeyed, and came to her. Go home, it said again, ordering her to rise and leave. But the sorrow in it proved her home was gone from this place. She had to find a new one. Tomorrow. But for today… Her body sagged. Her eyes closed. She begged for her heart to sleep.
She awoke in a cold sweat.
She awoke in a small bed, in a bedroom shared with Ginny, at Grimmauld Place. Yet, she did not recall how she had gotten there. And she could not recall the nightmare that made her heart lunge into her throat, and cold sweat to shiver her skin. So Hermione stared at the ceiling, paralyzed in fear of the unknown. It did not take long for fear to surrender to something worse: her memories. Gasping for air, as though the ceiling had descended upon her, Hermione remembered it all: the battle, the damaged limbs, Draco's death. All a cruel nightmare.
"No," her voice curdled. Hermione's bottom lip trembled; her muscles snapped, released from the paralysis. She curled in on herself.
It was all a cruel reality.
Ginny stirred in her bed. Hermione promptly left and hid in the bathroom. She washed her face and looked at herself in the mirror— at the deepening shadows under her red eyes, the deceivingly clean and unmarked skin. Her curls were freed of soot and soil, though she did not remember washing any of it out. She did not remember changing either, yet she wore bloodless, pink pajamas. And on her ring finger… the string was bloodless, too.
Hermione ripped it off her finger. She flung it into the sink. It stuck to the water (or her tears?) and she stared at it for a shattered heartbeat. Regret stung mercilessly at the back of her throat; she snatched the string. She clutched it in her fist, slammed her head into the mirror and grit her teeth against sounds no one in the house deserved to hear at such a late hour. She had not wanted to be here for this very reason. She could feel herself unraveling, as though she were a piece of string. Pulled in multiple directions of feeling, she came apart at every seam. Yet she looked so put together. How? How did she put herself together? She didn't understand—
"Hermione."
Hermione froze, hands gripped around the sink and her forehead threatening to crack the mirror. Her name was called again. With such longing and worry, her tears ran towards the sound. Fearfully, she looked around for the source. Saw only a small, grim bathroom. She turned back to the mirror to scold herself—
Draco stood behind her reflection. Anguished. Covered in blood.
A howling pain exploded from Hermione's intestines. Crippled, she gripped at her belly. It was wet. Warm. Covered in blood. A strangled cry escaped her. Then, she flinched backwards and the blood was gone. Draco was gone.
She stood petrified, staring at herself alone in the mirror. Alone, and grabbing at clean pajamas. Clean pajamas she did not remember putting on. In a bathroom, a home she did not remember returning to. Thinking she had seen Draco.
"It isn't real," she said to herself. The words echoed off the tiles and hit her across the face again and again. Until she was crimson and burning in agony. Remorse. Madness. "It isn't real."
Hermione wanted for none of it to be real. And, in a way, none of it felt real— not the sight of Draco, or the blood or her clothes or the house. Least of all, her body and mind. Everything shook and creaked, and pained with indescribable change. So, as she returned to the room and watched Ginny fight and win against her own demons, Hermione made the decision to leave hers behind. However, her decision cowered in the morning when she opened the bedroom door to find Harry and Ron real and waiting on the other side. The decision wobbled as Molly piled her breakfast plate to the ceiling, as Arthur smiled at her from across the family table.
But then Hermione's eyes landed on George and saw Fred instead. Fleur called to her, motioning for her to take a bite from the fork she had frozen by her lips, and Hermione remembered a conversation she had never had with the witch. At the cottage. About pancakes.
Make sure she eats, Hermione remembered someone saying. Her mind smacked the back of her eyes with that someone's name. Draco.
Fleur hesitated at first, confused, but accepted the task. Stood at the opposite end of the kitchen table, she picked up the tray of pancakes and—
Fleur nodded at Hermione, encouraging her to eat. Hermione dropped the fork, left the table, and vomited in the bathroom. Head pounding, she flushed down her doubts.
The next morning, Hermione rose from her bed having never slept. She grabbed a soft, small suitcase and filled it with what little she had left of herself; most of which came from the compact confines of her enchanted (and now discarded) purse: worn-out clothes, some money, a yearbook, a ration of pictures to remember her friends by. Hermione looked at the string on the bedside table. She left it… she took it.
As Hermione discreetly opened the bedroom window, for a brief moment she wished she had her wand. To silence the suitcase she dropped into the bushes below. Only, it landed softly enough and her wish vanished into the dark. Where it would stay, as Hermione would not need her wand where she was going. Or ever at all. Magic… Hermione's magic had taken enough. So she resolved to leave it behind. For the better.
And for the better, Hermione left Ginny to sleep. Hermione left the room. She kept leaving, down the hallway and to the front door. She reached for the doorknob—
Don't.
Hermione faltered. Something fought with her muscles, trying to pull her away from this choice. And she felt herself giving in, too tired to fight it. Maybe she could put off leaving. Just one more day. Maybe she would say goodbye after all, and wait until Teddy arrived to get in one last peek at him and everyone else before she vanished. Maybe she would allow herself one more night to dream about a life with her friends around her.
The floor creaked behind Hermione and she jumped. Her hand flew off the handle and stuck to her side. She turned around with a forced smile.
"What are you doing up?" Hermione asked as she took in the bed-smothered red hair, the even redder eyes of Ron Weasley. He rubbed at his face, trying to disguise the fact he was crying by acting more tired than he actually was. He shrugged casually; his bones groaned.
"Kreacher woke me up with all his grumbling. He's not exactly happy to have us all under one roof, and with more coming tomorrow morning," he lied. Kreacher couldn't have been quieter the past two days, going about errands in the house with a gusto that started to change Ron's mind about him- though only slightly. That elf still had a mean streak that gave Ron the chills. He shuddered despite himself.
"I'm sure," was all Hermione could put together for a reply. Ron looked over her, and she was certain he didn't like what he saw. After all, she wasn't in her pajamas despite the hour, even though she no doubt looked exhausted and worse for wear— as they all were. He frowned openly, thinking maybe he wasn't the only one who'd had a bad dream.
"Can't sleep?" he asked, and Hermione grimaced. For once, she didn't have to lie.
"Not really, no. I was going to go for a walk." It wasn't exactly a lie, but it still shackled itself around her heart. Ron nodded, unknowingly consenting to her leave. He walked towards her but she shot out a hand.
"What? I figured we could go together. It's not exactly safe to be walking alone," he mumbled groggily, only slightly offended by her aversion to him. She laughed haphazardly.
"I'll be fine, I promise."
"Are you sure you wanna go alone?" His sincere worry for her made it all the more urgent for her to leave. Now.
She gave her last smile to him. "Like I said, I'll be fine. I'll be back before you know it."
Easily assured, Ron smiled back and let her go.
So she went. Hermione closed the door behind her, retrieved her suitcase from the bush, and stepped out onto the damp, empty street. She walked and walked, with no true destination besides… away. Away from the magic that betrayed and maimed her. Away from a past that promised only a future of misery. Hermione ran away, towards a terrifying unknown, knowing full well she would not return. Not to friends or family. Not if it meant being haunted by what she had done, what she had lost— who she loved. That was her decision, and it did not waver again— not even as her love's voice came, and begged her:
Don't go.