Chapter 55- Surrounded By Nothing
Draco rubbed at the spot where the ropes had cut into his skin. It was still red, but healed over well enough. His neck had been healed as well, though the bruises showed, and he was able to breathe and talk as well as ever.
They were explaining to Dumbledore what had happened. They were in the hospital wing because Draco refused to leave Hermione. At that moment, he was sitting next to her on her bed, and had her hand in his.
Harry had just described how he killed Voldemort. Draco had already told his story, and so Dumbledore knew that Lucius and Voldemort had died at exactly the same time.
"When you told me that prophecy, I thought I would have to use Avada Kedavra on him," Harry said. "That scared me. I didn't want to kill anyone, and I didn't want to use Dark magic. Then I found that Interficus Maleficum…you knew about that all along, didn't you, Professor?"
Draco could tell by the headmaster's expression that he had. He nodded once.
"Why didn't you tell me, then?"
"Harry, things like this have to take their own course. I was not even sure you were going to be the one to survive it, because the prophecy was so unsure. As it was, I knew that if you did survive, you would kill him one way or another, and which way did not really matter. The method is not what counts, Harry, though I am glad you read 'Alternate Magic' all the way through."
Draco looked down at Hermione. She was so peaceful. She looked like she was merely asleep, but he knew better. He squeezed her hand, hoping that somehow she would feel it and know he was there.
They had finished up to the part where Dumbledore himself arrived in about twenty minutes. The headmaster seemed to have taken the entire thing in stride- even the part where Draco killed his father.
"Harry, may I see your wand for a moment?"
Harry handed over his wand. Dumbledore tapped the wand with his own, declaring, "Priori Incantato!" A tiny, white-smoke version of Voldemort dying was replayed from the end of the wand.
"In case we are asked to prove Voldemort's death, Harry, I would ask you not to perform any magic for a while with your own wand."
"Yes, Professor," Harry took back the wand and pocketed it, his mental note visible on his face. "Don't do any magic with my wand. Got it."
Madame Pomfrey came bustling in at that moment. "Headmaster, I really must insist that you let my patients rest," she huffed. "They have been through a terrible ordeal, and it's not even been a full day yet. Really. Almost every year the three of them have been in here, though I see Mr. Malfoy has joined them this year, and every year you have to come in here and disrupt their recovery! Oh, I'm sorry Albus…"
"It's all right, Poppy. I was just about to leave, anyway."
"Oh, one moment." She seemed to be considering something. "What was the spell used against the girl again?"
Dumbledore looked to Draco, who turned his gaze to Hermione and did not speak. "It was a modified spell, 'Stupefy Totalus'."
"I don't believe that's ever been used before. Well, I really am stumped. I can't come up with anything to help her. I think we'll just have to wait and see this time. If she doesn't wake up soon, however…"
"What, Poppy?" Dumbledore prompted.
"The effects of the spell will become permanent."
Draco looked up incredulously, despair glazing over his eyes. "How long?"
Madame Pomfrey looked directly at him. "Six days. A week from when the spell was cast."
Five days went by, with no sign of consciousness from Hermione. Harry, Ron, and Draco were released from the hospital wing the day after their talk with Dumbledore, but Draco spent most of his time there. He left to shower and change clothes, and once in a while to eat. He did nothing else but sit at Hermione's side, praying she would wake up.
"Mister Malfoy, I am afraid your time is up. It's late, you need to get your rest. This is not healthy."
"Just a few more minutes, Madame Pomfrey." He had yet to plead with Hermione to wake up. He had planned to do this, but as of yet that day he had simply sat by her side.
The nurse left with a sympathetic smile. Draco stroked Hermione's hair and face, finally bringing his hand down to hers. Now he was holding both her hands in his.
"Hermione, where are you? Why haven't you come back yet? If you were here you would never stand for this. I know, you would be screaming at yourself to wake up, then going to find a solution in the library. But the library can't answer my questions. Not this time."
"All I ever wanted was you, Hermione. You are the best thing that has happened in my life, and I won't let that be taken away from me. I don't care if the price for you waking up is that you don't love me anymore, I don't care. They can take it if they have to. Just please, please don't stay this way."
"You were not meant to be like this. You're meant to be awake, alive, full of energy, the way I have always known you. Not like this. And this is your last chance to wake up, because tomorrow night it will all be over. Please, Hermione, wake up. If you don't, I know I'll die, because there is no difference between your life and mine."
As he had done every night, he leaned forward and kissed her gently. He sat back down, resting his head near where he held her hands. He felt his eyelids drooping… drooping… and his thoughts become less and less coherent, until there were none at all.
************************************************************************
She was surrounded by darkness. No, not darkness, because she could see herself perfectly well. She was surrounded by nothing. It was the only explanation.
She held her hand up in front of her. It felt as though someone held it, but no one else was there. It was nice though. It was almost like Draco was there with her. She smiled contentedly.
But he was not there. She was completely alone. Her face fell. It was all very well and good to feel Draco with her, it was another thing to have him there. She turned in a circle, hoping to glean something from her surroundings. But as she turned she realized that there really were no surroundings. She truly was surrounded by nothing.
She looked down, perplexed. She was not standing on anything, but felt completely supported. "Nothing sure makes a sturdy floor."
She had heard nothing, but when she looked up, she gasped. Figures were now all around her in the nothing, floating above and below her, encircling her. She studied them, and was surprised that she was able to put a name to some of them.
"Pluto…Hades…Kali Maa…Anubis… Dispater, Donn, Arawn- but then, you're…?" There was even one figure cloaked in black, with a deep hood, skeletal hands, and a long-handled scythe.
"Yes," they said. They did not speak quite simultaneously, but they all said the same thing, in a mix of quiet voices. "We are Death."
This took a moment to sink in, even for one such as Hermione. "So- am I…?"
"No," they replied, seeming disappointed, impatient and indifferent all in one. Well, really it was more like in thirty or forty, because there were so many of them. "You are not dead. You would be. In normal circumstances, you would have been dead almost a week ago. However, someone- intervened on your behalf."
A figure began to appear before her, and condensed as she watched. Soon he was translucent enough for her to recognize him.
"Eros!"
"That's right, Mione," he said. She almost rolled her eyes and told him not to call her that, but she restrained herself. It was hardly the moment for nitpicking. "Your love is too deep to throw away."
"Um, you're still a bit translucent," she pointed out.
"Well, this is not my realm, so becoming completely opaque is out of the question. However that's not what matters now. What matters is why you're not dead."
"So why?" She had to wait another minute while Eros straightened his shirt.
"Right. Well, when I found out what was happening I went to Fate, and Lachesis- the one who measures them, you know- told me your thread was quite a bit longer. You've got a few years to go, and mainly because your thread is knotted hopelessly with that of another."
"Draco?"
Eros grinned. "You got it, sweetie. I was right about you. You're smart. So I came to talk to Deaths, as I call her, because there are so many forms- though many of them are male, the original Death is a female. Deaths agreed that I have a good claim on you, and she can't take you yet. So we had to think of a way to get you out of here."
"Where is this?"
"This is the Otherworld, ruled over by a nameless power. Many people between life and death find themselves here for long stretches of time. Well, the only way we can take you away from here is if the claimant leads you out- that's me. The only way *I* could get here is if Deaths led me in- that's them. So they're here, I'm here, and you're here, and the two of us are about to leave."
"And I'll wake up in my body?"
"Cross my heart."
Hermione supposed saying something like that meant more to the god of love than it would to most others. His entire life revolved around the heart, after all.
"So how is it that Death can be fully- here, if it's ruled over by someone else?"
"Deaths has a special relationship with this place. Since it is so close to her realm. Come on, Hermione. Just take my hand, and you'll be awake within seconds."
Smiling, her heart beating faster, she reached out her hand. It clasped with Eros's, and the nothing around them turned momentarily to a brilliant white. Then, there was darkness.
*What happened? Oh, wait a minute.* She slowly forced her eyes open, and found herself in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. It was an all too familiar sight, and a comforting one. Eros hovered above her. He smiled, then glanced toward her stomach, grinned, and disappeared.
Hermione shook her head. She moved her hands up to rub at her eyes, which were not used to being open, but they were constricted somehow. She peered down the bed, and her lips curled upward. There, resting on the side of the bed, was Draco, and he held both her hands in his own.
"Draco," she said quietly, hoping it would be enough to wake him. It wasn't. He continued to doze. She moved her leg sharply, her knee connecting with his arm.
He started awake, and she laughed silently. He rubbed his face to wake himself up, and then looked at her. "Hermione, you're awake." His voice was calm, but his eyes were ecstatically overjoyed. "Harry and Ron will be glad to hear that. They've been up here every day since…"
Her face had fallen when she saw Draco's neck. A dark bruise reminiscent of a handprint colored his neck. She reached out and placed her fingers gently on the injury.
He covered her hand with his, bringing it up to his cheek instead. "It's fine, Hermione. Don't worry about me. How are you feeling?"
"Surprisingly good." He had said every day since…something. "How long have I been… um, asleep?"
"Six days, almost to the minute the spell was cast."
"Six days! Oh, you sure took your time, Eros."
"Has he been bothering you again?"
"No, actually, he kind of saved me from death."
"What?!"
"I'll tell you the story on the train home. It's only, what, two days?"
"That's right, it's- oh, wow. The leaving feast is tomorrow! I hardly realized what day it was. I've been here most of the time."
She smiled. "Oh, Draco. That's so sweet of you. How worried were you?"
"Oh, you have no idea, Hermione. Probably about how worried you were when my broomstick showed up at your window. Or more."
Remembering that night, fearing the worst, she felt her heart ache for him. "I'm sorry I made you worry."
"Well, technically is was Madame Pomfrey. She told me you might die, and so I just *had* to worry, you know?"
"I can't believe she did that. But it was better than not telling you, I suppose. Draco… what would you have done, had I died?"
"I don't even want to think about it, actually. But I probably would have died, too."
Hearing this, she opened her arms to him, and he climbed onto the bed next to her, and they lay locked in embrace for quite a while.
"Mister Malfoy, you really do have to leave. It's so late, and what you're doing isn't help- Mister Malfoy!" They drew apart at Madame Pomfrey's scandalized gasp.
"It's all right," Hermione told her. "I'm awake."
She breathed a sigh of relief, then started scolding them for acting that way in a hospital, then turned on Malfoy for "bothering my patient". She had shoed him out within five minutes.
Hermione settled back onto her pillows with a smile. "Do you need anything, Miss Granger? Does anything hurt?"
"No," she answered. "Everything is perfect."
End Chapter 55
No cliffhanger this time, and it's not because I'm feeling generous, but we'll just say it is.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed! To those of you who mentioned it, I never intended for Hermione to die. I did think about it once, but the story would have been too difficult to resolve if she died… to much depression at the end. I would probably just have to end it with her death… anyway, I don't usually kill off the good guys… oh wait, never mind.
And just in case you were wondering, Pluto and Hades are *not* the exact same god. Since one is Roman and one is Greek, you know…
Review for Anubis-head confetti. It's cooler than it sounds.
Draco rubbed at the spot where the ropes had cut into his skin. It was still red, but healed over well enough. His neck had been healed as well, though the bruises showed, and he was able to breathe and talk as well as ever.
They were explaining to Dumbledore what had happened. They were in the hospital wing because Draco refused to leave Hermione. At that moment, he was sitting next to her on her bed, and had her hand in his.
Harry had just described how he killed Voldemort. Draco had already told his story, and so Dumbledore knew that Lucius and Voldemort had died at exactly the same time.
"When you told me that prophecy, I thought I would have to use Avada Kedavra on him," Harry said. "That scared me. I didn't want to kill anyone, and I didn't want to use Dark magic. Then I found that Interficus Maleficum…you knew about that all along, didn't you, Professor?"
Draco could tell by the headmaster's expression that he had. He nodded once.
"Why didn't you tell me, then?"
"Harry, things like this have to take their own course. I was not even sure you were going to be the one to survive it, because the prophecy was so unsure. As it was, I knew that if you did survive, you would kill him one way or another, and which way did not really matter. The method is not what counts, Harry, though I am glad you read 'Alternate Magic' all the way through."
Draco looked down at Hermione. She was so peaceful. She looked like she was merely asleep, but he knew better. He squeezed her hand, hoping that somehow she would feel it and know he was there.
They had finished up to the part where Dumbledore himself arrived in about twenty minutes. The headmaster seemed to have taken the entire thing in stride- even the part where Draco killed his father.
"Harry, may I see your wand for a moment?"
Harry handed over his wand. Dumbledore tapped the wand with his own, declaring, "Priori Incantato!" A tiny, white-smoke version of Voldemort dying was replayed from the end of the wand.
"In case we are asked to prove Voldemort's death, Harry, I would ask you not to perform any magic for a while with your own wand."
"Yes, Professor," Harry took back the wand and pocketed it, his mental note visible on his face. "Don't do any magic with my wand. Got it."
Madame Pomfrey came bustling in at that moment. "Headmaster, I really must insist that you let my patients rest," she huffed. "They have been through a terrible ordeal, and it's not even been a full day yet. Really. Almost every year the three of them have been in here, though I see Mr. Malfoy has joined them this year, and every year you have to come in here and disrupt their recovery! Oh, I'm sorry Albus…"
"It's all right, Poppy. I was just about to leave, anyway."
"Oh, one moment." She seemed to be considering something. "What was the spell used against the girl again?"
Dumbledore looked to Draco, who turned his gaze to Hermione and did not speak. "It was a modified spell, 'Stupefy Totalus'."
"I don't believe that's ever been used before. Well, I really am stumped. I can't come up with anything to help her. I think we'll just have to wait and see this time. If she doesn't wake up soon, however…"
"What, Poppy?" Dumbledore prompted.
"The effects of the spell will become permanent."
Draco looked up incredulously, despair glazing over his eyes. "How long?"
Madame Pomfrey looked directly at him. "Six days. A week from when the spell was cast."
Five days went by, with no sign of consciousness from Hermione. Harry, Ron, and Draco were released from the hospital wing the day after their talk with Dumbledore, but Draco spent most of his time there. He left to shower and change clothes, and once in a while to eat. He did nothing else but sit at Hermione's side, praying she would wake up.
"Mister Malfoy, I am afraid your time is up. It's late, you need to get your rest. This is not healthy."
"Just a few more minutes, Madame Pomfrey." He had yet to plead with Hermione to wake up. He had planned to do this, but as of yet that day he had simply sat by her side.
The nurse left with a sympathetic smile. Draco stroked Hermione's hair and face, finally bringing his hand down to hers. Now he was holding both her hands in his.
"Hermione, where are you? Why haven't you come back yet? If you were here you would never stand for this. I know, you would be screaming at yourself to wake up, then going to find a solution in the library. But the library can't answer my questions. Not this time."
"All I ever wanted was you, Hermione. You are the best thing that has happened in my life, and I won't let that be taken away from me. I don't care if the price for you waking up is that you don't love me anymore, I don't care. They can take it if they have to. Just please, please don't stay this way."
"You were not meant to be like this. You're meant to be awake, alive, full of energy, the way I have always known you. Not like this. And this is your last chance to wake up, because tomorrow night it will all be over. Please, Hermione, wake up. If you don't, I know I'll die, because there is no difference between your life and mine."
As he had done every night, he leaned forward and kissed her gently. He sat back down, resting his head near where he held her hands. He felt his eyelids drooping… drooping… and his thoughts become less and less coherent, until there were none at all.
************************************************************************
She was surrounded by darkness. No, not darkness, because she could see herself perfectly well. She was surrounded by nothing. It was the only explanation.
She held her hand up in front of her. It felt as though someone held it, but no one else was there. It was nice though. It was almost like Draco was there with her. She smiled contentedly.
But he was not there. She was completely alone. Her face fell. It was all very well and good to feel Draco with her, it was another thing to have him there. She turned in a circle, hoping to glean something from her surroundings. But as she turned she realized that there really were no surroundings. She truly was surrounded by nothing.
She looked down, perplexed. She was not standing on anything, but felt completely supported. "Nothing sure makes a sturdy floor."
She had heard nothing, but when she looked up, she gasped. Figures were now all around her in the nothing, floating above and below her, encircling her. She studied them, and was surprised that she was able to put a name to some of them.
"Pluto…Hades…Kali Maa…Anubis… Dispater, Donn, Arawn- but then, you're…?" There was even one figure cloaked in black, with a deep hood, skeletal hands, and a long-handled scythe.
"Yes," they said. They did not speak quite simultaneously, but they all said the same thing, in a mix of quiet voices. "We are Death."
This took a moment to sink in, even for one such as Hermione. "So- am I…?"
"No," they replied, seeming disappointed, impatient and indifferent all in one. Well, really it was more like in thirty or forty, because there were so many of them. "You are not dead. You would be. In normal circumstances, you would have been dead almost a week ago. However, someone- intervened on your behalf."
A figure began to appear before her, and condensed as she watched. Soon he was translucent enough for her to recognize him.
"Eros!"
"That's right, Mione," he said. She almost rolled her eyes and told him not to call her that, but she restrained herself. It was hardly the moment for nitpicking. "Your love is too deep to throw away."
"Um, you're still a bit translucent," she pointed out.
"Well, this is not my realm, so becoming completely opaque is out of the question. However that's not what matters now. What matters is why you're not dead."
"So why?" She had to wait another minute while Eros straightened his shirt.
"Right. Well, when I found out what was happening I went to Fate, and Lachesis- the one who measures them, you know- told me your thread was quite a bit longer. You've got a few years to go, and mainly because your thread is knotted hopelessly with that of another."
"Draco?"
Eros grinned. "You got it, sweetie. I was right about you. You're smart. So I came to talk to Deaths, as I call her, because there are so many forms- though many of them are male, the original Death is a female. Deaths agreed that I have a good claim on you, and she can't take you yet. So we had to think of a way to get you out of here."
"Where is this?"
"This is the Otherworld, ruled over by a nameless power. Many people between life and death find themselves here for long stretches of time. Well, the only way we can take you away from here is if the claimant leads you out- that's me. The only way *I* could get here is if Deaths led me in- that's them. So they're here, I'm here, and you're here, and the two of us are about to leave."
"And I'll wake up in my body?"
"Cross my heart."
Hermione supposed saying something like that meant more to the god of love than it would to most others. His entire life revolved around the heart, after all.
"So how is it that Death can be fully- here, if it's ruled over by someone else?"
"Deaths has a special relationship with this place. Since it is so close to her realm. Come on, Hermione. Just take my hand, and you'll be awake within seconds."
Smiling, her heart beating faster, she reached out her hand. It clasped with Eros's, and the nothing around them turned momentarily to a brilliant white. Then, there was darkness.
*What happened? Oh, wait a minute.* She slowly forced her eyes open, and found herself in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. It was an all too familiar sight, and a comforting one. Eros hovered above her. He smiled, then glanced toward her stomach, grinned, and disappeared.
Hermione shook her head. She moved her hands up to rub at her eyes, which were not used to being open, but they were constricted somehow. She peered down the bed, and her lips curled upward. There, resting on the side of the bed, was Draco, and he held both her hands in his own.
"Draco," she said quietly, hoping it would be enough to wake him. It wasn't. He continued to doze. She moved her leg sharply, her knee connecting with his arm.
He started awake, and she laughed silently. He rubbed his face to wake himself up, and then looked at her. "Hermione, you're awake." His voice was calm, but his eyes were ecstatically overjoyed. "Harry and Ron will be glad to hear that. They've been up here every day since…"
Her face had fallen when she saw Draco's neck. A dark bruise reminiscent of a handprint colored his neck. She reached out and placed her fingers gently on the injury.
He covered her hand with his, bringing it up to his cheek instead. "It's fine, Hermione. Don't worry about me. How are you feeling?"
"Surprisingly good." He had said every day since…something. "How long have I been… um, asleep?"
"Six days, almost to the minute the spell was cast."
"Six days! Oh, you sure took your time, Eros."
"Has he been bothering you again?"
"No, actually, he kind of saved me from death."
"What?!"
"I'll tell you the story on the train home. It's only, what, two days?"
"That's right, it's- oh, wow. The leaving feast is tomorrow! I hardly realized what day it was. I've been here most of the time."
She smiled. "Oh, Draco. That's so sweet of you. How worried were you?"
"Oh, you have no idea, Hermione. Probably about how worried you were when my broomstick showed up at your window. Or more."
Remembering that night, fearing the worst, she felt her heart ache for him. "I'm sorry I made you worry."
"Well, technically is was Madame Pomfrey. She told me you might die, and so I just *had* to worry, you know?"
"I can't believe she did that. But it was better than not telling you, I suppose. Draco… what would you have done, had I died?"
"I don't even want to think about it, actually. But I probably would have died, too."
Hearing this, she opened her arms to him, and he climbed onto the bed next to her, and they lay locked in embrace for quite a while.
"Mister Malfoy, you really do have to leave. It's so late, and what you're doing isn't help- Mister Malfoy!" They drew apart at Madame Pomfrey's scandalized gasp.
"It's all right," Hermione told her. "I'm awake."
She breathed a sigh of relief, then started scolding them for acting that way in a hospital, then turned on Malfoy for "bothering my patient". She had shoed him out within five minutes.
Hermione settled back onto her pillows with a smile. "Do you need anything, Miss Granger? Does anything hurt?"
"No," she answered. "Everything is perfect."
End Chapter 55
No cliffhanger this time, and it's not because I'm feeling generous, but we'll just say it is.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed! To those of you who mentioned it, I never intended for Hermione to die. I did think about it once, but the story would have been too difficult to resolve if she died… to much depression at the end. I would probably just have to end it with her death… anyway, I don't usually kill off the good guys… oh wait, never mind.
And just in case you were wondering, Pluto and Hades are *not* the exact same god. Since one is Roman and one is Greek, you know…
Review for Anubis-head confetti. It's cooler than it sounds.