Author's note: I apologize for having posted only a snipit of this chapter earlier. I rushed through it without paying attention to what I was doing. I hope you like the FULL chapter. Oh yeah, and I don't own Harry Potter, and of the characters, blah blah blah, all property of J.K. Rowling, you know the shpiel. Read and review, POLITELY, PLEASE!
At dinner Draco noticed that the ceiling was overcast, foreshadowing a storm that could ruin their plans. For a split-second he encouraged it, knowing that it could buy him time to stash the book away and keep one of his father's possessions from harm. But it had the potential to make her happy, and that made the burning well worth it.
He watched Hermione pick at her food and half-heartedly smile at the jokes that often circulated around the Gryffindor table. It had been almost two years since he'd seen her smile, or heard her pitch some genius idea to any of her friends. She seemed perpetually saddened, and he wondered how on earth burning some book could remedy that.
"Are you coming to practice on Friday," a cold angry voice asked him, and he met the eyes of Pansy Parkinson with a feigned grin and a nod.
"Yes, of course. I just wasn't feeling too well this week is all."
She mirrored his nod curtly and continued eating as his attention slithered back to the brunette Gryffindor across the hall.
They'd agreed to meet at 11:00 in front of the castle, leaving their courses of action to themselves. For some reason, Draco kept picturing the insincere look on Hermione's face when she'd suggested it, and how plainly insistent she'd been.
He watched as she rose from her seat and began to leave, followed by Harry. That struck him as odd.
She'd not kept company with Harry for weeks, and now they clasped arms and left the Hall together, both their heads bowed.
Perhaps she just missed the pathetic goody-good - after all, they had been practically attached at the hip since they'd met.
Maybe, he thought to himself, he could have her when this Ron madness stopped.
Deciding that he should give his Transfiguration homework another go, he took a last bite, swallowed a last drink, and headed out of the Hall.
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At 10:15 Draco sat in his bed with Solutions for the Dark Wizard open on his lap. It was eerie the way that the pages gave off a soft green glow, and he'd pulled his black velvet hangings around the bed to conceal what he did.
Something was wrong with the circumstances surrounding the near future plans that he had with Hermione. Even the book felt different, heavier and colder.
He was apprehensive, but he would not back down. This was his only chance to reawaken that bubbly fifth year girl that he'd once thought he hated.
And as he had been barely absorbing the information splayed before him, he saw it.
'How to Draw the Spirit of the Dead'. His stomach lurched. She must not have seen this. It was truly a miracle that the most thorough, book-obsessed witch he had ever met could miss something so important to her.
They were burning it tonight. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. It was going to go up in flames, and he was going to watch it with a smile.
Wrapping the book up in his soft green blanket, he clutched it to his chest and snuck quietly out of his dorm.
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He found it surprisingly easy to get down to the ground level, thankful that he hadn't encoutered Filch, or, worse somehow, Peeves.
He snuck through the large double-doors and there she was, huddled with her back to a rock, her legs beneath what was clearly an invisibility cloak. He'd always assumed that one of them owned one.
She gazed at him in a surprisingly calm way, her tired eyes locking on to that green bundle in his arms.
"Is that it?"
He nodded, stepping toward her.
"Let me see it."
He knelt beside her, pulling a corner of the sheet away to reveal the shiny black letters.
She glanced at it and sighed, covering Draco's hand with her own to drag the sheet back to its original placement.
He felt a warm surge rush throughout his body at being touched so personally by her, and he smiled inwardly at what they were about to do.
"There's something I've always wanted to try, but being as my parents are dentist, well..."
He watched her quietly, knowing what she wanted and reaching for his tin.
She smiled as he offered her a clove, thankful that she hadn't had to actually ask.
He lit his wand and then her clove, chuckling as she coughed her lungs out, then took another drag. Then he lit his own, and they smoked in silence for several moments.
She gazed at the clove in her hand and then spoke, her voice soft.
"I appreciate what you're doing for me, Draco.. Very few people would sacrifice something so important to them for my happiness."
He didn't know what to say. A cloud of smoke flowed from between his lips as he searched for a reply, but she had already stood and started heading toward the back of the castle.
He followed her.
She stopped before a large pit as big around as Hagrid's hut, filled with ashes and broken remnants of unburned debris.
The invisibility cloak was wrapped around her shoulders, making only her head visible, hair curled into a loose bun at the base of her neck. She was so beautiful, and she was almost his. Just another hour or so...
She took the book from his arms and unwrapped it, depositing the sheet on the ground and opening the cover. She flipped through the pages in a way that suggested she were looking for something, and dropped the invisibility cloak she'd borrowed from Harry earlier, climbing into the pit and crushing through the ashes to drop the book in the middle.
Draco watched as she drew her wand and muttered the incantatioin for flame, lighting the particular page she'd found and backing away as the entire book combusted almost immediately.
The repercussion of the explosion knocked her over, and she fellt into a swirl of ashes as the burning pages began to scream. The flames were an emerald green, shining and spinning, illuminating the night.
A figure began to materialize from the screeching fire, tall and lanky, yet somehow ethereal.
Hermione reached for it and Draco climbed toward her through the pit, shouting for her to stop. But she kept moving, crawling toward the greenish flames that began looking more and more like Ron.
Draco grabbed for her ankle, dragging her away from the open arms of a smiling Ron, yelling at her through the painful noise.
"Hermione, what the hell is this?"
She reached for his face, cupping his cheek in her ashy fingers.
"This is my destiny, Draco! This is the only way that I can be happy! Maybe if the circumstances had been different we could have had something, but my heart is elsewhere! Please understand!"
And then she kissed him - a soft, open-mouthed kiss that made his heart flutter and fall as she pulled away.
"Goodbye, Draco!"
And he let her crawl into the flames and embrace the dead man that she could never be happy without, her hair and clothing disintegrating to ash.
Somehow the pain didn't seem to exist for her as the flaming man held her protectively, her skin sloughing off rapidly, replaced with the same ghostly green flesh as Ron's.
Draco felt the tears begin to flow freely as her entire body was reduced to embers, and then the two ghostly figures turned to him and smiled before vanishing in a flurry of sparks.
And then he was left alone in his misery, wondering what she had found and how she had done this.
Well she had done it. She had gotten what she wanted, at any cost...
And now he could never have what he wanted.
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The next day Draco awoke in the hostpital wing, his lips and hands badly burned, and his heart aching too much for him to notice any physical pain. He forced himself to open his eyes, the pale face and muss of dark hair that belonged to one Harry Potter greeting him with tear-streaked cheeks.
"Come to curse me?"
Draco rose cautiously into a sitting position as Harry glanced up at him, swallowing so hard that his adam's apple bobbed. Draco thought that it seemed like a physical show of swallowing his pride.
"No, actually... I came to tell you a few things, and... Ask a few..."
Draco licked the sweet salve that had been applied to his lips, waving his hand as if telling Harry to go on.
He did so slowly, massaging the ankle he'd lifted to his knee.
"Well... First of all, she loves you... I don't know why, but she does."
Draco scoffed but Harry continued as if he had not.
"She told me yesterday at lunch. She said that sometimes you have to do things that hurt those dearest to you, which I didn't understand at the time, and she said that your father and the rest of the society that you were born into would disown you if you were ever involved with a... A muggleborn. She didn't want that. And then she asked to borrow my invisibility cloak."
Draco sneered and shook his head. What a pathetic attempt at cheering him up. He sighed and examined his bandaged hands, quietly urging Harry on.
"And... I wanted to ask you if she looked happy... When she died."
Harry seemed a bit nervous and uncomfortable at speaking of something so personal with a boy he'd attacked only a couple of weeks ago.
Draco noticed this and made a conscious decision to be gentle and soothing. Despite the fact that Hermione had betrayed him so completely, he still felt the same, and being unduly cruel to her best friend would not have made her happy.
"Yes. Very content. She'd been planning it for a while, I think. She found a spell to bring Ron back as a spirit, and decided that she'd send for him, and leave with him. And Dumbledore has your cloak, I believe."
Harry laughed softly and wiped away a falling tear, tucking away the information about his cloak into the recesses of his mind to think about later.
"She always did do what she wanted."
Draco lifted and dropped his brows, feeling his heart begin to harden. There was no reason to be warm anymore.
His attention was snagged as Madame Pomfrey entered the room, wand and bowl of sweet-smelling salve in hand.
"Visiting time is over, Potter," she said dismissively, and Harry nodded and began to leave. Draco resolved not to say goodbye when Harry turned around and offered his closed fist.
"By the way... She asked me to give this to you."
He dropped a silver locket into Draco's hand and then met his eyes for a few moments before leaving, as if emphasizing its importance.
He examined it in awe as Harry retreated. How had she afforded this? It was silver, yes, but only on one side, which had a large 'M' engraved in green, while the other was gold, engraved with a red 'G'.
He struggled to open it with bulky bandages, choking on tears as he saw the expected pictures of himself (smiling, for once), and her (looking incredibly sad).
Where had she dug up a picture of him smiling? He didn't rightly care.
Immediately, he put it on. She truly was amazing, that heartless mudblood.
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He lay in bed, whispering her name, stroking her gift and praying for a sign. Love was not what he had hoped, but instead very painful and pointless.
He thought for hours as to what would become of him. Would he go on to honor the name 'Malfoy'? Would he fall in love again, perhaps in a more conventional way? Marry, procreate, promote the survival of his bloodnline throughout the generations?
Yes, she whispered back as he fell to sleep, coming as a breeze to cover him with that emerald-colored sheet that he had not yet washed and press a cool kiss to his cheek.
Make me smile when I see you again...