Gone
Groaning as I felt all my muscles twinge, I blinked a few times. Where was I? What had happened? Glancing around I realised I was in a St Mungos, with Harry and Blaise sat either side of my bed. Trying desperately to remember what happened I struggled to figure out what was my last memory. My mind seemed so jumbled that none of it made sense. I remembered being with Scorpius and being hurt, but then what? It must be pretty late; it was dark in the room and the only light was a dim light coming through the door. Looking at Harry and Blaise I noticed how tired they both looked, clearly, I'd been here a while. Coughing as loudly as my dry throat would allow me I watched as both boys shot up looking dazed.
"Oh my god, you're awake." Blaise said looking relieved as he glanced over at Harry.
"We've been so worried." Harry added glancing back at Blaise a nervous look shooting between them.
"Is Scorpius ok?" I said, if they were shooting each other these glances then something had clearly gone wrong.
"He's fine, he's fine. Narcissa is with him." Harry said holding his hands up as if trying to calm a bull.
"What do you remember?" Blaise said sitting back down as he stared at me, his face full of concern.
"Not much really, I don't even know how I got here." Another glance. Something was wrong. I looked myself over as they continued to stare at each other as if deciding which one of them was going to tell me. I wasn't too badly injured; I had a bandage on my wrist and a couple of scars on my chest but apart from that I couldn't really see what was actually wrong with me. I felt my heart pounding in my chest as my nerves got the better of me.
"Start with the worst, it can only go up from there." I said glancing between the two boys knowing them well enough to know when they didn't want to tell me something. Again there was nothing but silence as the glanced between themselves and then back at me.
"Now!" I shouted at last, losing my patience with the pair of them.
"Hermione…" They froze. Could it really be that big a deal? They were looking far too concerned for my liking. My heart was thumping out of my chest, I just needed to know what they were going on about now.
"Go on…" I said not wanting to make any guesses that I knew would only make me panic further.
"Hermione's dead Draco."
Blaise said at last confirming my worst fears as a deadly silence dropped around the room. Finally, the redness in their eyes made sense, it wasn't just tiredness, it was sadness too. I felt a solid lump position itself in my throat, questioning how this was even possible.
"What happened?" I said a few moments later. My words felt numb, lost, empty.
"Your father found out you were the spy, he took you and Scorpius, Hermione went after you. She saved you, she told your mum to go back for her and take you two, but by the time Narcissa got back the house had exploded. There was nothing left." Harry explained calmly. His calm voice annoyed me, why was he calm when his best friend had just died? How was any of this calming?
"No. She's not dead." I said finding the only words that seemed to come naturally to me. Blaise gave me a half-hearted smile and put his hand on my shoulder.
"They only found her necklace, from Lucius and Fenrir they only found bits too and they think she was a lot closer to the explosion than the rest of them. I'm sorry mate, no one could have known what would happen." He said. I knew he was trying to give me closure but none of it made any sense.
"Why would she come after me? She hated me in the end. How would she have even known I was missing?" I blurted as questions buzzed around my mind refusing to accept that this could even be true.
"I told her. I asked if she could help, she said no and the next thing I know she's gone too." Harry said his voice hoarse as he coughed away a few tears.
"But what if she got away? What if she disapparated?" I asked trying to find some feasible loophole.
"She didn't have a wand Draco and your mum said she would've been too weak to use wandless magic. We've tried to find her, but we can't find any other way that she could've escaped." Blaise said quietly looking off into the distance. There had to have been some way for her to get out. They needed to check again. They had to find her. My son couldn't grow up without a mother. The room fell into a silence as I tried to process the huge wealth of information given to me.
"She died thinking I was a monster, I never even got to explain." I said into the silence after a few moments.
"She saved your life; she didn't think you were a monster." Harry said absentmindedly. There was a deafening silence around the room and that was when it hit me. She was gone, she would never fill the silence for me again, and boy did that make the room feel quieter.
********* 4 days later*****
The news still hadn't really sunk in, it still didn't feel any easier, the more information people told me, the less I felt like myself. I was just a shell moving around. Today I was finally being released from the hospital, the medi-witches were confident that my memory would eventually come back fully but for now I'd just have to put up with not remembering. I had a few aches and pains but nothing too bad, they were actually surprised at how quickly I was healing. As for little Scorpius it turned out that Lucius had been attempting to drain him of his blood, so after a blood transfusion he was doing ok, I couldn't quite lift him yet but his little face was the only thing keeping me going these days. The biggest torture of my mind was wondering whether she knew the truth.
Harry and Blaise had been with me every day, but they too needed to grieve. I felt as though I couldn't bring myself to cry because crying meant I was accepting fully that she was gone and I wasn't, I couldn't.
There was a memorial for her tomorrow and mother had asked me to go but I still wasn't sure if I could really face it. Being around my family and friends was hard enough when I could see the heartbreak in their eyes but being surrounded by strangers and seeing how many lives, she impacted was not something I could face. So many of them wouldn't even know why I was there, how much I loved her, how much I still love her. I could never forgive myself for the things I'd done to Hermione, she deserved the world and I'd only managed to give her pain, so maybe I didn't deserve to love her but she was the other half of me. Without her I was broken because she was the other half of my whole. A huge piece of me was missing and the silence that followed me these days was terrifying. At least at the hospital, I'd been able to hold onto the hope in my heart that she'd found a way out but today, for the first time I'd see everything that we'd shared.
Stepping out of the fireplace into McGonagall's office I couldn't help thinking of the last time I'd done this; I was carrying Hermione in my arms but now I was more alone than ever. McGonagall was joined by Harry, Blaise, a puffy eyed Ginny and My mother who was holding Scorpius. They all stared at me for a few moments as though I might explode.
"Ah Mr Malfoy it's good to see you." Professor McGonagall said firmly as she held her hands tightly together.
"Uh thank you." I felt myself replying as though I was stood back watching the scene unfold.
"We thought it would be best if your friends stayed with you in the heads dormitory for a couple of days to help you settle back in, and your Mother is going to stay close by with your son, so she will be close by too." I nodded at McGonagall's matter-of-fact statement, no longer having the strength to fight anymore. The whole room stood staring at me and I knew they wanted more; I just didn't have any more for them. Giving one last nod I shifted towards the door and made my way out of the office feeling the eyes on the back of my head and not caring whether they followed me.
The journey to the head's common room was harder than I thought it could be. Every step gave me a new memory of her, every step took my breath away by thinking of her. By the time I reached the portrait hole I was breathless, confused and lost. This was going to be harder than I ever thought it could be.
"Here if you need mate." Blaise's voice floated from behind me and I realised I'd been staring into space in front of the portrait hole for several minutes now, frozen by my own thoughts. Nodding once more I muttered the password and stepped through the portrait hole. The room was perfectly untouched, not a hair out of place and not a sound to be heard. Glancing around I couldn't help but note how much bigger it suddenly felt, how much more isolating it felt. I couldn't stay down here, not when I could picture her on the sofa laughing with Scorpius, or collecting an letter from the owl at the window, or rocking Scorpius in front of the fire when he was having trouble sleeping. This place lived and breathed with her in it and it felt broken without her.
"I'm going to bed, make yourselves at home." I muttered waving my hand around the room for Harry, Blaise and Ginny to see before turning on my heel and heading up the staircase to my room. Gingerly laying on the bed I shut my eyes tightly and tried to let it all fade away.
"She's not gone. She can't be gone, she's the other half of me." I muttered to myself wishing for this nightmare to not be a reality. She couldn't be gone, I couldn't live without her, I couldn't breathe without her. I didn't want to live without her. She couldn't just be gone.
******End of Chapter****
Thanks for reading! This was actually a very hard chapter to write for me, Read and Review
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