Title: Love's Whisper

By: Saotoshi and The Fire Goddess

Category: Harry Potter Song Fic

Characters: Draco, Hermione & OCs

Disc: Barring Evan, Rose and Ayin, all these characters belong to J. K. Rowling. If you are surprised, damn you're dumb! Where have you been living? Under a rock?!

A/N from Sao: For those of you who wanted this slash, well, it had to be a mutual agreement, it wasn't, so there. It's not gonna become a slash. In other words, deal with it, or go read something else. And, for a certain person (not naming names) who said that if the first chapter sucked, the rest does too, you're gonna miss out on a lot of good things and a lot of good books if that's your mentality toward life in general. Boy, no offense, but your life is gonna suck!! Patience isn't a virtue for nothing, you know. 'Sides, I don't care 'bout what you think, so there! : p *blows raspberry*

Chapter Two

My Last Breath

            Draco's usual mask of indifference fell as he was bathed in the memories of the past. Ayin and Rose looked at each other with identical looks of worry and instant understanding. Whatever it was he was going to tell them was going to take a lot of emotional strength. Quite a lot. Right before he opened his mouth to speak, the door opened and Evan sauntered in.

            "Sorry," he muttered with a yawn. "Can I come in?" At Draco's nod, Evan walked over to where Rose sat on the floor in front of the fire and kissed her. "Been looking for you."

            "Oh get a room," Ayin muttered with a smile. "Evan, Draco was going to tell us something important."

            "Do you want him to leave?" Rose asked. Draco shook his head.

            "Doesn't matter," he said. "I should just get this off my chest. Someone once told me it was good to tell people what you're feeling sometimes."

            Taking a deep breath, he began:

            "In my fifth year at Hogwarts, things began fairly the same, with an undercurrent of tension because of the Dark Lord's return. Of course, you know my father was pleased with that bit of news. Harry Potter was still somewhat depressed over what had happened to Cedric Diggory in fourth year. Ron Weasley hated my guts as usual and spent his time convincing Potter that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn't dare come to Hogwarts and that he wasn't to blame over Diggory's death, along with the help of a Muggle born witch, Hermione Granger.

            "I had always hated her. No, truth was, I was angry. Angry that she was always such a know-it-all, angry that a Muggle born could be so much better in certain subjects than a Malfoy, angry for many reasons, all of them somewhat stupid now that I think back.

            "In any case, to make a long story short, she and I fell in love. Mind you, some of her Gryffindor friends said it was straight out of a storybook. 'The nice, caring girl and the cold-hearted brute' I believe were their exact words. Harry, of course always being the understanding friend, supported Hermione, although I'll admit that when she wasn't around, we didn't speak more than two words to each other before we wanted to kill one another. Weasley, on the other hand, had liked Hermione. The fact that she'd gone out with me of all people made him angry. They didn't talk much that year, and I couldn't say that I was particularly upset about that."

            "How did your friends in Slytherin feel?" Ayin asked, knowing that his old House had been a sneaky, ambitious lot with a great disliking, for lack of a better term, toward Gryffindors.

            Draco gave a small dry laugh. "In truth, they despised me for supposedly 'betraying' the Dark Lord, although since I had never been in league with him in the first place, I didn't see how that was possible. I'll admit, there was a time when I would have gladly said that I was in league with him. However, years with my father and seeing the way he treated my mother and me, I didn't want to have to go through that, even if I wasn't on the receiving end of it. Sure, my mother and I aren't the nicest people in the world, but still. There is a difference between us, and the cruelness in my father.

            "I'm getting off the point. Out of the Slytherins, only Crabbe and Goyle still stuck with me. They were a bit thick headed at times, but they were true friends, despite belief in the contrary at the time. Most of the others didn't bother me or speak about Hermione or me in my presence, but I knew that behind my back they said things. It didn't matter to me. There were a few others, Blaise Zabini, and a couple of other people who didn't much care for stupid rivalry between Houses. That wasn't the reason they were there.

            "Others, like Pansy Parkinson, were more than unhappy with it. She'd always liked me; I'd always known that. That she'd become obsessed with me had come as quite a disturbing shock. I should have listened to her stupid threats when the year was ending. She said that she would talk to her father who was a Death Eater and tell him how the Dark Lord was losing a Death Eater to some spell. That I would betray all I knew which was actually nothing and that the ministry was counting on Hermione getting it from me. She said she would tell them that I was being led on and was under a spell."

            Shaking his head, Draco looked at the carpet on the floor as if it had become the most interesting thing in the world. "I knew my father would be against me going with Hermione. She was, after all, Muggle born and as different to the kind of person he wanted me to be as night and day. I also knew that my mother would be against it to, although not for the same reasons. As I said, my mother isn't the nicest person in the world and she can't stand people like Potter and Weasley. Always out to help one another and always looking for the positive side to things. But, if it made me happy, she would bite her tongue and deal with it, at least, to an extent.

            "I never thought that Pansy would go through with her threat. Nor that not only would my father help her, but that the Dark Lord and the other Death Eaters would buy it. If I had known, if I had at least taken her seriously, things might have turned out different. Maybe not, but I'll never know. After a good fifth year, I didn't think such an abysmal sixth year would follow. I never thought that I would lose Hermione so quickly…"

~ ~ ~

Hold on to me love

You know I can't stay long

All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid

Can you hear me?

Can you feel me in your arms?

~ ~ ~

            As Draco told his small audience what happened that fateful year, he relived it as if it had all happened only a week or so ago. The images replaying in his mind seemed to engulf him and transported him back to relive it as if he were there once again.

            It was November and Hermione was leading him up one of the tower steps to see a painting she had discovered by accident when one of the staircases had changed on her a couple of afternoons ago. Her brown hair was pulled in a loose braid that fell over one shoulder, and her eyes sparkled with joy. The painting was gorgeous, and she just had to show him. She pulled on Draco's hand, leading him up until they were half way up. Stopping, she pointed to a picture of a landscape.

            At first, Draco didn't see what was so fantastic about a landscape painting of a forest that looked an awful lot like the Forbidden Forest. The only difference between the real thing and the painting besides the obvious was that the one in the painting didn't look menacing. It looked inviting and serene. Hermione instructed him to take a closer look, and Draco did so obediently.

            A moment later, he noticed what it was that had made the painting such a lovely thing to her. At a glance, the forest was of an autumn forest with red, orange and golden yellow leaves painted so that the light made it seem as if the leaves were swaying on the branches. After a while, you realized that there was a gently breeze blowing in the picture, and that the leaves were indeed swaying. Some every now and then would gently float to the forest floor. Of course, that wasn't the fascinating part. Many paintings moved about like this one. However, they didn't have it snowing lightly like it was outside that very moment.

            "I told Harry and Ron about it," Hermione told him. "And they said they've seen this picture. Except, when they saw it, the snow was melting and there were spring flowers blooming on the trees. A couple of days later, the snow was completely melted and there were blooms everywhere, just like it was outside."

            "Seems this artist loved to see the forest when the seasons changed," Draco said to her.

            "And look there," Hermione said. 

            She pointed to a tree in the picture that didn't readily draw the eye. It was to the far right, somewhat in back, in between two other trees that were thicker and seemed taller, although in truth, it could have been the perspective of the painting. In any case, the tree appeared smaller than the rest, as if to keep attention away from itself. But once it did catch the attention, one noticed the opening at the base of the tree. It indicated that this tree was hollow. And huddled in the small hollow was a small, brown doe. The fact that the hollow looked as if it could readily fit another two or three of the doe made it look more innocent and vulnerable than it did on it's own.

            "Isn't it beautiful. It's called the White Forest. I looked it up in the library, and the guy who painted it didn't sign his name, but he did leave the story of the painting." Hermione sat down on the steps, still gazing at the painting, and began, "He used to live near a forest that looked like that one. A matter of fact, it's one and the same, with the hollow tree and all. He lived there all his life, and he loved it almost more than anything."

            "Almost?" Draco asked, sitting down next to her.

            Hermione leaned into him before continuing. "There was this girl who lived nearby. She hadn't lived there as long as he had, but she loved the forest. She told him that it was such a quiet and peaceful place. Naturally, he fell in love with her."

            "Naturally," Draco had muttered sarcastically, earning him a jab in the ribs.

            "Don't make fun," Hermione scolded. "Anyway, he had once asked her if she'd always stay with him. She told him that she couldn't promise him that she would be, but if there ever was a time which he couldn't find her, to come to the forest and to look for her in the hollow tree. It so happened that a year later, the same year they were to be married, she was killed. By He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and the artist was devastated.

            "Neither one of them had been particularly strong in magic to draw the Dark Lord's attention. They had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Remembering her words, he went back to the forest, if only to find peace in the place that had always done so. And when he went to the forest, he saw the hollow tree. It had seemed to just draw his attention that day, though he had never been for the most part interested in the tree."

            With a smile, Hermione turned her attention from the painting to look at Draco. "And there, in the hollow of the tree, was a doe. 'A small, little thing that looked as if though one good gust of the wind would topple it' was how he described it. It just looked at him, with its dewy brown eyes. They seemed to take him to a place where everything was right with the world. Where nothing could ever touch him and where he'd know peace. He took a couple steps closer to the doe and it didn't move. It just stared at him with its big eyes until he was close enough to touch it. It started snowing then, and he lifted his face to the snow, eyes closed. When he opened them, the doe had stood and began to walk away. He stood slowly as the doe stopped and turned back to look at him. Then, it turned and continued on. He watched it for a minute before the doe walked behind a large tree, and when he went to follow it, there wasn't a trace of it ever having been there."

            "Seems like the girl had told him the truth," Draco had said into her hair.

            There was a pause, and Hermione just looked at the picture. Then, quietly, she said, "Years from now, however long it is until I die, if I become a ghost, that's where I'll go. Into this picture with the doe."

            "But you don't have to worry about that for a long time," Draco told her as he stood and pulled her up with him. He kissed her softly before adding, "If I have anything to say about it, you'll live a nice, long life with nothing to hurt you."

~ ~ ~

Holding my last breath

Safe inside myself

Are all my thoughts of you

Sweet raptured light

It ends here tonight

~ ~ ~

            Draco shook his head as the memories continued. "That was in sixth year. Right before it happened…only a month or so before."

            "Hermione, what are we doing in here?" Draco asked. Hermione was holding his hand, leading him through the Forbidden Forest.

            "I'm sorry. It's just that Harry and Ron, I saw them run in here after Peter Pettigrew. I know that they'll try to catch him because if they do, it'll clear Sirius's name and Harry will be able to go live with him," Hermione answered.

            Draco nodded and just followed her silently, hoping that they'd catch Pettigrew just so they wouldn't get in trouble. He wasn't sure whether this was all true or not, but he was willing to find out. Because of Hermione, he was making an effort of trying to get along with at least Harry, since in Ron's case; it seemed hopeless that he and Draco would ever truly get along. They ducked under low branches and ran over protruding tree roots, trying not to trip and fall.

            Twenty minutes later, they came into a small clearing. There they stopped. Harry and Ron were both pointing their wands at a balding man who was cornered against a tree. One of his hands was silvery, and strong if the bark that was breaking off from its grip on the tree behind him was any indication whatsoever. Draco guessed this was Peter Pettigrew, which was somewhat obvious.

            "Ron! Behind you!" Hermione suddenly screamed, although it was too late.

            Draco followed her gaze as a giant black spider emerged from the shadow of a few trees and caught Ron around his waist. Ron was kicking and yelling, his face pale, and his wand on the forest floor where it had fallen from his grasp. Draco and Hermione shot blue fire from their wands at the giant arachnid, both intelligently aiming for the most sensitive spot on its entire body. Its eyes.

            Ron screamed as the spider dropped him to the ground and retreated. Draco only stared after it, knowing that strange creatures lived in the Forbidden Forest, but never imaging that such a large type of spider would be among them.

            Unfortunately, the large creature had acted as quite an effective decoy for Peter Pettigrew, although an unplanned one. Harry was distracted long enough for Peter to dive to the ground where his wand lay and mutter 'Noli Spira' a dark curse, pointing his wand at Harry. Ron had recovered enough to realize what Peter was doing and he tackled Harry, unbalancing both so they toppled to the forest floor, neither one getting hit by the curse.

            Draco had continued to look where Ron's attacker had retreated both in preparation for retaliation, and because he was still in awe of the giant creature that had fled only seconds before. How or why Hermione had been distracted enough to notice, Draco would never know. Nor did he care at this point and time, since in knowing, he wouldn't be able to bring one of the people who had affected him most in his life back.

            "No!" Draco turned at the yell that had issued forth from both Ron and Harry concurrently in time to see Hermione clutch her chest as the curse hit her. She began to fall back and Draco ran as if he were on a broom and in pursuit of the Snitch. Sliding to his knees, he managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

            Already, Ron and Harry were on their feet and facing Peter one more time. Thinking back, Draco couldn't remember a time when the two had seemed like anyone but the two Gryffindors he had come to know. The pure hatred that had radiated off of them seemed to become as thick as soup in the air, interrupted only by Draco's anguish. Not that he wasn't as boiling in rage as the other two boys, but at the moment, he had his love dieing in his arms.

            Ignoring the evident fight going on behind him, Draco said to the girl in his arms, "I'm not allowing you to die on me, Granger."

            Hermione's breath was shallow, and her right hand still clutched her chest. Yet, still, she managed a small smile, although it was a forced one. She opened her mouth to say something, but it was as if time were slowing down. She seemed to be struggling for breath, and Draco racked his brain, knowing that stored somewhere in his mind was all the knowledge of dark curses that he'd acquired from growing up a Malfoy. If memory served, Noli Spira was a curse that stole the breath from the victim's body. As if they were drowning slowly, and no matter how hard they tried, they just couldn't get enough air.

            "I guess I'll see you in the White Forest," Hermione finally managed with a gasp of air. Breathing became harder for her, and she clutched weakly onto Draco's arm. "Draco…"

            "Shhh," Draco whispered to her, feeling the unfamiliar wetness of tears trailing down his cheeks. "Save your breath."

            Hermione smiled as a tear slid down from Draco's cheek to fall onto her own wet cheeks followed by one that landed near her mouth. "You're…crying…for me."

            "Of course—"

            "Draco," she interrupted with a gasp. "I love you…but… you have to…have to promise me…you won't become…cold again…ever."

            Draco barely managed to nod when Hermione breathed one last thing before going completely still. Draco shook her gently and called her name, knowing it was useless, and then just held her, his head bent over her. Perhaps he would have stayed like that if it weren't for Hermione's final words. They had bounced around in his head like a Bludger being beaten back and forth, going every which way. They pounded him relentlessly, and he wasn't sure whether he would ever escape them. He knew what he must do, but the weight of his promise was already weighing him down, and he wasn't sure if he would be able to keep it. However, her final words still rang in his head…

            "Move on…"

~ ~ ~

I'll miss the winter

A world of fragile things

Look for me in the White Forest

Hiding in a hollow tree

(Come find me)

I know you hear me

I can taste it in your tears

~ ~ ~

            Draco shook his head with the memory, fresh tears falling in between the fingers that were pressed against his eyes. Each tear followed a similar path to a joint before dripping onto the rug below. The only three witnesses to Draco's anguish stayed silent, not knowing what to say to lessen his pain. Ayin herself had tears running down her face, not knowing what she would ever do if she were faced with a situation similar to Draco's. How could someone forget someone who had apparently taught them so much and loved them so much more?

            After a couple of minutes of silent weeping, Draco pulled himself together and wiped the tears of his cheeks. Hermione had asked him to move on. Her final words, had she had the strength, would have been a command. He looked at his cousin who seemed on the verge of tears for her cousin, to her boyfriend who was looking at her in thought, and then at Ayin who looked back, tears running down her own face.

            "I can't imagine how that must have felt," she whispered to him.

            Draco looked down at his own hands for a moment before clutching them. "I didn't feel anything."

            "What?" Rose asked, not understanding what he meant.

            "After she died in my arms, it was like a void opened up in me," Draco explained. "After a couple of minutes, I laid her down, and I just ran at Pettigrew, wanting to kill him with my bare hands." He gave a small disdainful chortle before adding, "It was the stupidest, rashest thing I had ever done. For all I had known, Harry and Ron could have been cursed and dead and Pettigrew could have been ready to do the same to me. But it didn't matter I was too enraged. Ron tried to hold me down, but my anger lent me strength, and finally, Harry muttered the body bind and I couldn't move. I guess I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew, I was in the infirmary, Madame Pomfrey standing over me."

            Draco stood up and paced the room. "I still don't remember many details about the days, weeks, even months after. Everything seemed to go by in a haze. Her funeral, Pettigrew's trial, the declaration of Sirius Black's innocence, it all passed me by without me really realizing that they were. I wouldn't go home again, and I refused to stay with either the Weasleys, some of whom I knew still harbored some animosity towards me, nor would I stay with Harry and his godfather. I stayed in Hogwarts with Dumbledore's permission."

            Draco stopped pacing. "I hadn't been planning on going to see that painting ever. The 'White Forest' was a painting I wished to never lay my eyes upon again. Perhaps because I was so adamant to stay away from it that I found myself standing before it not even a week after summer holidays had began. I couldn't help it, once I was standing before it. I couldn't help but look at it since there it was before my eyes.

            "The first thing my eyes sought out was the hollow tree. I looked over at it, but it was empty. The deer was no longer sitting there, nor was anyone or anything else. I had just shaken my head and turned to go when I looked back at the picture where some movement had caught my eye. The small little deer had sauntered across the trees and stopped in the middle, gazing at me before making a small noise, and going back to it's hollow tree. Seeing that seemed to bring a small peace around me and for the first time since I heard them, I considered Hermione's words."

~ ~ ~

Holding my last breath

Safe inside myself

Are all my thoughts of you

Sweet raptured light

It ends here tonight

~ ~ ~

            Draco stopped pacing in front of the window looking out below. He seemed to have forgotten there was anyone around beside himself. After a minute or so, he turned away from the window and leaned back against it to face the others.

            "I couldn't think of exactly how to move on, until Harry suggested I become an Auror. The classes I was taking were most of the ones required, so I was pretty well on my way from there. You can guess the rest from there." Draco sighed what could have been called a self-pitying sigh had it come from anyone else. "Guess for once, I'm actually failing at something I'm trying."

            Rose attempted to get up and move toward her cousin, but as she did so, the comforter that Draco had handed to her and Ayin tangled around her feet, causing her to fall forward. She fell face first onto the hardwood floor and Draco couldn't help but laugh at his American cousin.

            "I see you're as graceful as ever," he said sarcastically. His laugh died down and he turned back to the window. He leaned on it, his eyes closed.

            "Draco?" Ayin's voice came from behind him. She paused, seeming to think on what to say. Finally, she opted for, "Goodnight."

            Not long after, his bedroom door opened and the footsteps of his guest receded into the hallway. He listened to them go down the hall to their own rooms, and he sighed a long, exhausted sigh, and dragged himself over to his bed. Pulling off his robes and shoes and so forth, down to his boxers, he crawled into bed, lying down, wondering whether he was hoping to escape reality, or hoping to return to it…

~ ~ ~

Closing your eyes to disappear

You pray your dreams will leave you here

But still you wake and know the truth

No one's there

Say goodnight

Don't be afraid

Calling me, calling me

As you fade, to black

(Say goodnight)

Holding my last breath

(Don't be afraid)

Safe inside myself

(Calling me, calling me)

Are all my thought of you

Sweet raptured light

It ends here tonight

Holding my last breath

Safe inside myself

Are all my thoughts of you

Sweet raptured light

It ends here tonight

Holding my last breath…

~ ~ ~