Name, House, and position of Player 1: Theoretical_Optimist, Ravenclaw, HoH

Name, House, and position of Player 2: shy-n-great, Slytherin, Charms

Category: Inter-House Bonus Round

Prompt: [Event] Mourning somebody's life, [Thought] He'd/She'd/They'd never see it coming.

Word Count (excluding header): 2040

Hermione thought she knew pain. She thought she knew grief. She was wrong. Nothing could've prepared her for the moment when Draco died. She hadn't been there when it had happened, but she didn't need to be. It was like her heart couldn't beat properly, her lungs couldn't take a full breath, and her brain couldn't understand a life without him. As she stared at the name on his gravestone, she couldn't think past the pain, or breathe, or stop her heart racing.

It had been five days since her world turned upside down. She wanted to cry and scream and rage at the injustice of a life cut short, but she had to keep her emotions at bay. As far as the world was concerned, she and Draco were nothing more than former classmates and frequent adversaries. Wizarding society revered her as a war hero – the brains of the Golden Trio. He was perceived as Death Eater scum who escaped justice only due to the magnanimous nature of the Boy Who Prevailed's exonerating testimony.

They had been so close to telling the world. They'd argued constantly about it – the only thing they ever did argue about. Hermione had been wanting to tell people for weeks, but Draco kept putting it off. "Not yet," he would say. "I'm not ready for them to hate you because of me."

As she stood by herself in the graveyard, she wished she hadn't waited. She'd never felt so alone.

Two years earlier

Hermione hated when her friends would ditch her whenever they went out on their double date nights. They claimed it was for her sake and that they didn't want her to feel like a fifth wheel now that Harry was engaged to Ginny and Ron was serious about Lavender, yet all they achieved was making her feel alone.

Rather than sulk at home, Hermione took herself out to a Muggle bar for a night of pub trivia. It wasn't one she'd been to before, which worked for her – she was less likely to bump into people she knew. She didn't want to answer questions about where Harry and Ron were. So when she saw Draco Malfoy skulking at a corner table, nursing a beer, shocked was an understatement. She'd never expected to see anyone from school here, let alone the poster child for Anti-Muggle… well, anything.

Frozen to the spot, Hermione watched him; he had one hand resting on the bottle of beer, the other doodling on the piece of paper he'd been given for the quiz. She started when his head shot up, his eyes finding hers automatically, even with the number of people between them.

Summoning her Gryffindor courage, she decided to be brave. She ordered a pair of pints, squared her shoulders, and marched over to his table.

"Anything I can help you with, Granger?" he'd drawled when she sat down and slid a beer across the table.

She smiled at the familiarity of the interaction. "I was hoping you might want a partner for the quiz. I didn't expect to know anyone here tonight, so it's a nice surprise to see a friendly face."

He scoffed. "You think I'm a friendly face? Since when have we ever been friends?"

"I can't see why we can't be friends," Hermione said. "You're clearly not the same boy you were. You wouldn't be hanging out in a Muggle bar waiting for the quiz to start if you were."

Draco sat back, holding her gaze firmly, and it took all of Hermione's willpower to not swallow under the scrutiny.

To her surprise, he broke the stare first. He kept his eyes on the pen in his hand as he tapped it on the paper, leaving a dozen tiny ink dots. "Will you tell Potter you saw me here?" he asked.

"Not if you don't want me to."

Draco pushed the paper towards her, dropping the pen on top of it. "You're best writing the answers. They can never read my writing when I swap it with another team."

Hermione picked up the pen just as the quiz moderator called for their attention.

When the quiz was scored, Hermione was pleasantly surprised that she and Draco had come in second place for the evening and earned a certificate for two half-priced beers at the next quiz night.

"How'd you get so good at Muggle trivia?" she asked.

He took a sip from his nearly empty glass. "I've been coming here for a couple of years now. I had a really rough time after the war ended and spent more time than I care to remember drunk out of my mind, wandering the streets of London. I'm not exactly welcome in pubs in the Wizarding World now, but Muggle pubs take me in. I stumbled upon this place and a group of university rugby players asked me to join their trivia team one night."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Of course, I was thoroughly useless that night. Nevertheless, it was a good time. I went out the next day, found a Muggle bookstore, and purchased a book on random, useless trivia."

Hermione stared at him, frowning and smiling at the same time. "I'm pleased for you – that you found something like this. It's good that you didn't hide away."

Draco shrugged.

She turned in her seat pulling her jacket from the back of it. "I should probably get going."

She'd barely taken a step away when Draco called, "Hey, Granger! Want to do it again next week?"

There was no hiding the grin on Hermione's face. It was instinctively there at his offer. Draco smiled in return, almost like a reflex to her reaction. "I'd like that," she said sincerely.

Leaving the bar that evening, Hermione found herself being silently grateful to her friends for ditching her.

She smiled at the memory even as silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

That night had turned into a weekly trivia tradition, which gradually morphed into coffee meetups every Saturday morning. When he'd invited her back to his flat to peruse the not-so-miniature library that he'd relocated from Malfoy Manor, she jumped at the chance. When she awoke in his bed the next morning, it felt completely natural.

She loved being with Draco; he challenged her in a way that no one else ever had. She wanted to introduce him to her friends, but he couldn't shake the fear that she would be alienated just for being with him.

Five days ago, she intended to force the issue. She felt like she'd been living a half-life and had no desire to hide away any longer. She knew her friends would be shocked, but ultimately accepting. 'They'd never see it coming,' she'd thought, 'but they'll see we're a good match.'

Too bad fate had another idea.

After a number of arguments, Draco had caved; anything to make her happy. That's what he'd told her. They promised to meet up at a tiny park down a small street off Oxford Street – their favorite park. They were going to meet Harry and Ron for lunch and finally expose their relationship to the world.

Hermione heard the noise, the commotion, the crunch of metal on metal. She heard it and she knew. Her breath was pulled from her in an instant. She stumbled forward, looking to the road she was expecting Draco to come down. People were running away from the park. To see, maybe to help, if they could.

She walked. She couldn't run. Her eyes searching every face that went by. Draco had to be one of them. Surely he would be looking for her.

When she rounded the corner onto Oxford Street, it was chaos. All the noises Hermione hadn't heard before were violently assaulting her ears. Sirens, shouts, screams.

A crew of paramedics was feverishly working on a body on the pavement while the drivers of two crashed vehicles were screaming that the other was to blame. Onlookers gawked at the horror and praised the medical professionals for their quick response.

Hermione couldn't see the body, but she didn't have to.

She knew.

"Poor bugger," said Ron as he and Harry arrived by her side. "We heard the commotion and figured you'd be here trying to help."

Hermione stared, unseeingly, at the terrible scene, not acknowledging the presence of her oldest friends.

"Hermione? Are you alright?" asked Harry.

'No,' she thought, 'I'm not alright.' Shaking her head she responded aloud, "Actually, I'm not feeling well at all. I have to go." She brushed past her friends and ran to the other side of the street.

Harry and Ron called after her, but she couldn't turn back.

Her head whipped around towards the paramedics, hoping to get a glimpse of the body. Hoping that what she felt in her heart wasn't true.

Hermione saw the hair first. A shade of white-blond she'd known since she was eleven. There was no mistaking it. The rest of him was covered with all kinds of medical equipment, hands all over him, one pair pushing on his chest. She shook her head, blindly stepping forward.

"Sorry, madam. Can't go any further," a police officer said, putting an arm out in front of her.

"I know him," she mumbled.

"What was that?" The officer leaned his ear closer to her.

Did she say the words? They felt like they'd come out. She spotted Harry and Ron in the distance, looking at her. She had to get out of here. She felt like she was going to break apart right there on the spot.

Running, tears blurring her vision, Hermione pulled out her wand, frantically searching for a quiet street to Apparate away in. She stopped as quickly as she'd started running, turning back to look at the carnage, the way the car had cut into the other – Draco had been in the wrong place, at the wrong time. All the magic in the world and it had been useless to him. There was nothing he'd have been able to do.

The Daily Prophet reported the death of Draco Malfoy in their evening edition. They published a short obituary that described the good works he'd been involved in since the war. His mother asked for donations to the war orphans fund that he'd patronized in lieu of flowers. The paper noted that he was survived by his mother, aunt, and cousin.

The Daily Prophet did not mention her. Why would it? As far as the world was concerned, she was nothing to him.

The paper did not mention his child who grew within her. Why would it? Even Hermione had been unaware of the child's existence at the time of Draco's untimely death.

So now she stood in the graveyard, mourning his life cut short. She mourned her own life now that she was forever without him. She mourned the life of their child who would never know how wonderful of a man its father was.

She felt so totally alone, even as she caressed her still flat abdomen.

"You could've told me, you know?" Harry's voice came from behind her.

She looked over her shoulder to him, not even shocked at hearing his voice. Some part of Hermione was so very numb to a lot of things in life now. She brought her eyes back to Draco's name. "How did you know I was here?"

Coming to stand by her side, Hermione looked at him again. He was dressed in a dark suit with his hair as tidy as Harry could get it. "I was at the service."

A small nod. Of course, he was.

Harry put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him tightly. A small sob hiccupped out of her. "Harry, I—" The words got stuck in her throat.

He waited. She finally got the words out.

"What am I going to do now? What are we going to do?"

Harry's eyes darted down to her hands gently caressing her non-existent baby bump. His eyes widened in understanding. "I'll be there for you, Hermione. So will Ron and all the others. You won't be alone in this."

She collapsed into his arms and sobbed.