AN: Diamonddaydream back writing Dramione! Let me know if this is good enough to continue. Thanks

He was gone.

It was one sentence, so short, just a thought on repeat in Hermione Granger's head. He was gone and it was all she could think about as she sat against the tent door, an unread book open in her lap. She stared into the dark moor that seemed to stretch on forever on all sides. So much cold empty space, and Ronald Weasley wasn't in it. The night before, she had chased him, begged him not to go, and he'd left them – left her – all the same.

Harry was inside the tent, the awful horcrux locket around his neck, trying to sleep while she kept watch. They'd hardly spoken all day. Hopeless. It all felt hopeless now. Ron wasn't just a boy she fancied, not just a best friend. He had felt like her future, like a family after she'd lost her own. Harry was her hope to win the war, and Ron was her hope to be able to be happy after it was all over. She'd never told him that, but she felt like he knew. And then…how could he just…

She wiped her eyes and stood up. If she had to cry over Ronald Weasley she could at least do it somewhere there was no chance of anyone hearing, not even Harry. The dry winter heather snapped under her feet as she crushed a path through it. Was there really any point in leaving her wand unlit tonight? Who would be looking for them out here, wherever exactly this was?

She'd left her scarf on a rock next to where the warded tent was concealed so she'd be able to find her way back to it. Away from the shelter, the wind was hard and loud. It was biting at her face, whipping her hair out of her braid, but also somehow invigorating. For the first time all day, she felt like something might happen, some move toward a future she had never imagined, something that wouldn't hurt so much. Maybe somewhere out there, Ron was changing his mind, and if she moved, he would sense her, and find his way back again.

No, that was rubbish. She knew it and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"Please," she said aloud. "Come find me."

Then she heard it, the crack of an apparation. She crouched in the heather, her heart pounding, eyes wide as she tried to see who'd arrived on this distant, blasted moor with them. Was it an enemy? Someone hunting Harry or here to retrieve the locket horcrux? It could be someone from the Order. Or it might be him, Ron like a walking wish coming true, coming back to her already.

Whoever they were, they stood alone on the moor, not striding around brooding like a character from an old romance, but startled and poised as if to defend themself. Their arms were sprung at the elbows, wand raised, head swiveling to find their bearings. They seemed to have no driving purpose, but kept quiet, listening hard as the wind tore at their long, dark cloak.

Hermione risked creeping closer, still unable to recognize them. They were tall and thin, their head hooded. There was an alert litheness in them, as if they were young and maybe athletic. It could very well be Ron, but he didn't have a cloak like that when he left the night before.

She crept even closer, wishing the visitor would light his wand so she could see him, but also terrified he might see her. If they recognized her, the sight of her would give Harry away, and one thing was certain. Harry had to stay hidden. Everything depended on it. He had to keep sleeping in the tent until either Ron revealed himself, or whoever else this was went away.

The person swore to himself, a low but tense masculine voice. He thrust one hand into his pocket, retrieved something, and made a motion Hermione knew well. It looked as if he'd flicked a Deluminator.

Ron – it had to be Ron.

Hermione was moving to stand up in the heather, about to reveal herself, to call Ron's into the wind.

Then the visitor swore again, louder this time.

The voice wasn't right.

The visitor shook the Deluminator as if it was broken before jamming it back into his pocket. In frustration, he threw back his hood, desperate to better see where he was.

Hermione gasped. In the moonlight, the visitor's hair flashed white. His face was still shadowy but now that she could guess who it was, she recognized him completely. The haughty grace of his posture, the tilt of his head, the ready violence in his grip on his wand. This was Draco Malfoy, the Death Eater she knew best. She hadn't seen him in person since the night Dumbledore died. How had he found them? Where were the rest of the Death Eaters? And what would she have to do to keep him from capturing Harry and taking him to Voldemort to be killed.

Something about the way he adjusted his hold on his wand told her Draco was about to cast Lumos. Once he'd lit up the moor, he'd be able to see the path she'd trod through the heather, a line leading back to her scarf on the rock, marking where the tent was hidden. Malfoy would trip right into Harry's bunk if he got that close. Hermione could hide herself, but she couldn't hide all of that.

Malfoy had to be kept in the dark. As he began to speak "Lumos" she whispered "Nox." His light flared for barely an instant before going dark again. He tried a second time, then a third, her counterspell overwhelming his each time.

Draco Malfoy was many things, but never stupid. Instead of casting Lumos a fourth time, he turned in a slow circle.

"Who's there?" he snarled. "Stop your cowering and come out."

Even with the wind howling, if he called any louder he might wake Harry. And then the heroic fool would come racing out to rescue her and get himself dragged off to You Know Who, just like that. She had to keep Malfoy not only in the dark, but quiet.

"I know you're there," he said. She couldn't tell if it was a coincidence or not when he took a step in her direction. "What am I doing here?" he demanded.

It was an odd question. How would she know?

He stopped his advance, as if he'd sensed her near him. She held her breath, and in an instant, the same thought went through both of their minds.

"Expelliarmus."

Hermione whispered the spell a fraction of a second before Malfoy spoke his. The wand spun out of his hand and into the heather. Before he could summon it back, she lunged forward, her arms around his knees as she drove her shoulder into him, knocking him down.

He dropped flat onto his back, winded, twigs breaking beneath him. She held onto him, crawling up the length of him from his knees over his hips and torso, sitting hard on his heaving chest. She bore down on him, keeping him pinned as he lay stunned and breathless on the ground. She shushed him as he found the breath to swear again, still sitting on his chest, holding his wrists to the ground, her hair spilling out of her braid and into his eyes to obscure his vision. Moonlight fell over her shoulder, her face back-lit and void.

"Who the hell are you?" he managed to say before she charmed his wrists to stick to the ground and clamped her hand over his mouth, her wand jabbed under his jaw.

"Quiet," she said. "Where did you get that Deluminator?"

Malfoy thrashed beneath her, bucking his body upward with a kick of his legs. She held on, her palm still on his mouth, her face ducked into his shoulder, gripping him with her knees as if she was riding a very bad hippogriff. His neck was hot against her face, his exertion and anger intensifying the smell of his skin. The smell was familiar, something she knew well but hadn't experienced in months. Good store bought soap.

"Who did you take it from?" she said when he stopped kicking to catch his breath and she could raise her head again. "I know you stole it."

Malfoy wrenched his head sideways, spitting out her hair as she uncovered his mouth to let him speak. "I have no need to steal," he said, thrashing more lightly now. "It was a gift."

"Liar," she said, a tremor in her voice.

"It's the truth," he said as she shushed him again. "It was a gift from a teacher. Where he got it, I have no idea. Take it if you want. It's useless." He thrust one hip off the ground, showing her the pocket where the Deluminator was stashed.

She was thinking fast, knowing she couldn't hold him for much longer before Harry blew his cover. The teacher must have been Snape. He would have access to all Dumbledore's things now, and maybe the Deluminator Dumbledore gave to Ron wasn't the only one. The fact that Malfoy had one didn't necessarily mean Ron had already been captured and shaken down. She was dying to demand to know if Malfoy knew anything about Ron, to say his name. But if she did, Malfoy might know who she was.

"Take it and let me go," he said. "I didn't mean to come here. I don't want to be here, and I swear I'll never come back."

Hermione plunged a hand into his pocket and found the Deluminator. Malfoy stopped fighting, watching her as she examined it. The Deluminator was not quite identical to Ron's. Even in the dark she could feel that the bore of this one was smooth, not engraved with Dumbledore's initials, as Ron's was. She flicked the lid open and clicked the fuse.

"See, nothing," Malfoy said. "I've got it to spark only once. And that was the misfire that sent me here. All I wanted was some fresh air, to be somewhere without the stench of cursed reptiles and death for once."

She slid the Deluminator back into his pocket.

"Watch your hands," he hissed.

She scoffed. "You pervert. Don't you flatter yourself. As if I'd – "

"Well you ARE the one who's still sitting here, straddling me. I've been raised a gentleman, and this is indecent – "

"Oh, FINE," she said. "I'm going to let you up, and then you will have five seconds to accio your wand and disapparate before I start casting hexes from in hiding again."

"Yes, brilliant," Malfoy said. "I'm gone."

"And don't ever come back here – "

"Easy, I don't even know where this is – "

"And even if you do come looking for me, know that I will be long gone by then – "

"Good riddance to you – "

She started to rise but then crashed her pelvis down on his chest again, clamping his ribcage hard between her knees in one last show of dominance. It forced a pained sound between a grunt and a miserable laugh out of him.

"Five seconds," she said again. "Beginning – now."

She disapparated across the moor, still in stunning range, undercover and ready to attack if Malfoy broke his word. But he had no intention of staying. Before she finished her count of five, he was on his feet, his wand was back in his hand, and he was gone.


Harry was sitting on the edge of his bed, no specs, his hair standing up all over. He looked miserable, not even trying to smile at Hermione as she came back into the tent after her nightwatch ended.

"Quiet night in the middle of nowhere?" he said, not really a question.

She coughed. "Wind was a bit rowdy. Sounded almost like voices at times. I once read a Muggle novel about that kind of thing happening on the moors, but didn't expect it to be so realistic. Didn't you hear it?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I was dead to the world. Finally couldn't stay awake anymore."

She let out her breath, and now that she knew she didn't have to, she decided she would not say anything to Harry about Malfoy's appearance during the night. It seemed to have been a genuine accident. He had been legitimately lost, and he hadn't recognized her. No harm done.

As she prepared breakfast, Hermione felt a little less gutted than she had the day before. It wasn't just the passing of time, or that there was more food to go around. And she did sense that she would still spend some of her time today mourning Ron's leaving. But as she stood at the stove, she squeezed her knees together, remembering how she'd held Malfoy in submission, protecting herself and Harry. She couldn't convince Ron to stay but she was still powerful. And all that talk about her being smart – it wasn't just hype. It was true. Sometimes she forgot.

She might never see Draco Malfoy again, but whatever came after her next, she could beat it, even if she was truly on her own.