Author's note: I cannot express how sorry I am for the delay in adding to this story. After almost a year of writer's block, however, I am grateful to have happened upon some inspiration so that I could return to my work. I only hope that those who were once interested in this piece will return to reading it…
Quiet now.
The only sound was of him breathing heavily beside her, his consciousness far away in the world where her dreams yet lived and there was still a bit of happiness left in her sorrowful life,
He was sound asleep.
He had come into her room again, talking to her, brushing her hair. Again, he had clambered into the bed beside her. This time, though, she had known. This time, she had been ready.
He had cried himself to sleep, and she had felt sick deep in the pit of her stomach.
He had told her goodnight.
He had told her he loved her.
She wasn't sure what to think of that, so she tried not to.
She couldn't love. Not anymore.
At least not in a way that he would understand.
Like love, there were many kinds of darkness.
Some darkness could not be extinguished with the simple flip of a switch.
She wondered if her heart was black now, frostbitten from the chill in her soul.
She willed herself to focus on now, enraptured by the sound of Ron's steady breathing. So unlike Severus. Through the sheet that separated them, she could feel that he was warm.
Or maybe she was just so cold.
He grunted, stirring slightly in his sleep. Don't tense. Relax. Breathe. The moment passed, and he stirred no more. So unlike Severus. She could hear him thrash about every night, even from the sanctity of her private room.
In some grotesque way, she had always wanted to go to him. Wanted to comfort him.
Madness.
Anything to stop the pain.
Remembering was hard. It would have been so much easier to forget. Will it away. Stop the pain.
Ron had always been there to help her before she had chosen Snape. She hadn't known whether to resent or appreciate that when she had first started slipping away from the grasp of her classmates and into the world that would soon become her reality.
In the mornings, they used to talk over breakfast.
"How long did your detention last last night?" A question, but already, the edge had been there.
"He kept me fairly late." Shrug. Smile as though it was nothing. It was nothing.
"Don't you think some people might see something wrong with that?" A note of concern. Had it been for her, or for what he had thought he was losing?
"Maybe." She had given up caring what people thought. Even then, things like that were starting to slip away.
"You should tell McGonnagle." Pause. "You could get him in serious trouble for harassing you you know. Maybe you could even get him sacked!" He had always offered that, as though it were his place. She remembered the hope. Hope, the last refuge of madmen and dreamers. Once, she had been one of those.
"Why don't you tell?" She had always raised her eyebrows then. Everyday, it had been the same.
"I hate him." The first hints of frost had been forming on his heart as well.
"It isn't a big deal. I don't really mind. He lets me get my homework done. It's not like he's been making me do odd jobs for him the entire time." She had always wanted to change the subject.
"You do too mind. I know you better than that." Like he thought he could protect her by changing her.
"It doesn't matter. I'll tolerate it." The same tired sigh. "It's easier this way Ron. Can't you see how much easier it is when you don't try to fight him?" That same feeble excuse. Don't cross that line.
"That doesn't sound like you. I never thought you'd choose what was easy over what was right." He always thought he knew what was best for everyone. She could see now how well he had taken his own advice.
"There are some battles you should choose to let go, Ron." He hated the truth because he had always wanted more from her. Even then, some part of him had seen that Severus Snape would have her, and that she would let him. Even then, he knew he had no chance.
"You can't just let people run over the top of you like that, Hermione! Dammit, why won't you listen to anyone? You've said it yourself, for God's sake. This whole thing is a joke. I don't like what it's done to you. You look so Goddamn old." One last plea. She had always been wiping her mouth with the Gryffindor crest imprinted upon her linen napkin at this point, letting the rough cloth clear away the remnants of her breakfast from her freshly washed skin. She had always showered in the morning because it delayed Parvati and Lavender from rising from their beds. She had liked her peace. She could pretend that life was good when there was no one to be seen.
"Don't try to fix me. I'm not broken." Not yet. Not then.
"Just think about it, Hermione." A sigh that signaled his inevitable defeat. She wondered why he had always tried. He had never won.
"I'll save myself." Curt and evil sounding. Even then, she had been trying to break his heart. She had known in an intuitive way. The certainty would come later.
She wondered now if he remembered those days.
She wondered if he remembered her.
He was dreaming now. She could tell by the way he was twitching. She didn't dream. Not anymore. Now, there was nothing to save her from the dark.
She felt him kick her in the leg and tried not to flinch. So like Severus, the few times she had slept beside him.
He grunted, rolling over. The breathing stopped. He was awake, staring at her. She could feel it. Severus had taught her that, standing in the darkened doorway to her room, caught between shadow and blackness where she could never quite see him. She had learned to feel his presence, staring.
Breathe. That was the only way to fool. Breathe. Asleep, dead, it didn't matter. Breathe. Breathe.
"Hermione." Don't react. The name. In the beginning, it had given her away to Snape. He had seen through her when she flinched at her name. She had learned. By the last, he thought she slept like the dead.
She would have rather died in her sleep.
A touch, just on the shoulder. She remembered their days at Hogwarts again.
No. Don't remember. It hurts…
Tears, hot, wet and salty.
Please, God, don't let him see.
"Hermione." More of a question now. Did he know? Had he seen? No. His sigh was too sad, too long, too wounded.
Some wounds would not heal.
Arms now, around the waist.
'God, don't let him hold me.' As if she still believed in any God. God was dead. If there was a God, she would be working in a potions laboratory somewhere, trying to fix the problems of the world through drafts she stoppered in glass vials.. If there was a God, He would just let her let go.
If there was a God, He would let her die.
"God, please help me to help Hermione." Why did he waste his prayers on her?
"Our Father who art in Heaven…" His eyes closed. She felt his eyelashes brush the back of her neck. Don't pray for me…
"hallowed be thy name…" The pain. Throbbing now. Stop.
"thy kingdom come, thy will be done…" He prayed as though she were dying. Perhaps he thought she was. Perhaps he thought it would be kinder. She must not deserve to die.
"on Earth as it is in Heaven." She was going to explode. He had to feel her breath quickening now.
"Give us this day our daily bread…" If there was a God, He wouldn't forgive her.
"and forgive our trespasses…" Did he want her to be forgiven, or himself?
"as we forgive those who trespass against us." She could feel him squeeze her tighter. He was thinking of Severus, no doubt. He should have been thinking of her.
"Lead us not into temptation…" She didn't remember temptation. There had only been choices. Neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. Things that had to be done. Life that had to go on. She didn't believe in black and white, not anymore. Everything was gray.
"But deliver us from evil…" His voice trailed away. He held her tighter, closer.
Evil. He was thinking of Snape again. Imagining things that had never been. He had never asked. She had never said.
She was thinking of life.
Life was more evil than she could have ever imagined.
She wondered if he would understand. He wouldn't.
He still believed.
As long as the white candle of hope yet burned inside his heart, he would never understand her pain, never understand her emptiness.
Trying to kill the pain only brought more.
She didn't believe in hope.
She didn't believe in anything he would understand anymore.
"How is she?" Albus Dumbledore sat down at the kitchen table with Molly and Ginny Weasley, Harry having managed to drag Ron off to a minor league quidditch game after the latter had emerged from Hermione's room late that morning, pretending as though he had fallen asleep in the chair talking with her again. His mum knew better, but she had said nothing. Somehow, with Hermione in the state she was it seemed more a violation of her son's own soul than it did of Hermione's privacy. He had made it plain enough that he would destroy himself as he saw fit. She knew from experience that there was little she could do to stop him. Perhaps lying with his friend helped him in some twisted, grotesque sort of way.
"No change." Molly sighed softly, conjuring up steaming mugs of tea with her wand and shaking her head softly. "She still hasn't spoken to anyone."
"Not even Ginny?"
"No." Ginny sounded as though she were going to cry, her voice quavering with strain as though the whole ordeal were too much reality for her.
Molly drummed her pudgy, calloused fingers on the tabletop, staring down into the steaming mug before her as though she expected the liquid within to converse with her. The Earl Grey stared placidly back, offering nothing. "I thought she would talk to Ginny too," she said at last.
"She won't even look at me," Ginny shivered. "I hate going in there. It's creepy. I don't know how Ron can stand to sleep in there with her. It's like she's dead." She stopped and thought for a moment, adding at last, "only worse."
"Have you heard anything about Severus Snape?" Mrs. Weasley turned towards Dumbledore again, trying to take the pressure away from Ginny.
"Nothing." The elderly man twisted his face in a sad sort of smile and shook his head. "It's a bit odd, but no one seems to have any news."
Molly raised her red eyebrows slightly. "That is odd, with the network we've set up. You'd think it would work a little better"
Dumbledore smiled at her. "I can't quite believe it, myself. Usually if there's no news, someone manages to make something up. No one seems to have any leads on Severus, though. I've asked everyone I know that might have a clue as to his whereabouts, and most of them just sigh and ask if he was the one who married Hermione, clucking their tongues like it was some sort of tragedy."
"It was some sort of tragedy," Ginny spat. "All that time I spent with her…if I had known what was coming, I would have told her to run as fast as she could and never look back. She was better off before she ever knew him."
"I don't know that that's entirely true," Molly reproached her daughter softly. She knew there was more to what went on between Hogwarts's Potions Master and his young wife than met the eyes, though exactly what she could not say. She had known Hermione for years now. It just wasn't like her to do anything in haste and without a good reason. She was too focused, too serious. The surface value of her relationship with Severus was too negligible for her to have considered it without some sort of extenuating circumstances.
Ginny looked at her with raised eyebrows and shook her head just enough so that Molly could see it, but not enough that she wouldn't be able to deny the gesture. Mrs. Weasley ignored it, turning back to Dumbledore. "What about Potions classes? I asked Arthur if he would try to do something over at the ministry, but he says they haven't the time or available resources."
Dumbledore sighed. "We've got some alumni in, the ones who were reasonably adept at Potions and have time to spare. Then there's Draco Malfoy…" His voice trailed off, and the temperature in the kitchen seemed to grow measurably colder at the mere mention of the man's name.
Ginny coughed, a word sounding suspiciously like "worthless" coming out along with her forced breath.
"His father still has many important and influential friends as you well know. He found out there was an opening in the Potions department through some Slytherins who were desperately missing their head of house and did everything he could to push Draco in. Though I made it clear I would allow no supporters of the Dark Arts among my staff, I had little choice but to take Draco, seeing as he has never been accused of actually practicing them." He held up his hand to quiet Molly's protest. "Now, now Molly. We can't make everyone around us guilty by association alone."
Ginny broke down, sounding as though she were going to cry again. "Why couldn't you have stopped them from getting married?"
"Because there are many things that are not within my power, Miss Weasley, and controlling the life of another is one of them." Dumbledore looked up the young girl kindly, giving her a smile that never quite reached his eyes.
"I just always thought that there might have been some way for you to stop her from ruining her life." Ginny looked sad and tired.
"There was nothing I could do. She had made up her mind. You were not Hermione's only friend, Ginny," Dumbledore admonished her gently. "She knew that, in my office, she was always welcome." He paused a minute, draining the last dregs of the tea from his mug. "Is she still in the same place, Molly?"
The matronly woman nodded. "Just down the hall."
Dumbledore stood up. "I have to get going in a few minutes, but I want to see her. Thanks for the tea." He pushed away from the table and walked off down the hallway, Ginny's voice following him.
"Do you think he can help?" The younger girl sounded hopeful.
Mrs. Weasley sighed as though she were holding the weight of the world. "Ginny, I think the only one who can help Hermione is Hermione."
"Why would Dumbledore do something like that?" Harry asked as Ginny relayed the news about Draco Malfoy's temporary takeover as Potions Master to he and Ron later that evening. "I feel sorry for you." He put his arm around Ginny as though to console her and she rolled her eyes, the slightest trace of a smile on her lips.
"Which do you think is worse," she asked, "Malfoy or Snape?"
"Snape," Ron said without hesitation, the deadly seriousness of his answer casting a somber mood over the conversation. He stood up from the couch and clattered towards the stairs, stomping on each step as he ascended towards what had once been his room.
Harry sighed as he listened to him go. "I thought he might have cheered up a little after watching the match today. I was hoping that taking his mind off things for a minute might help him put the whole situation into a better perspective. I wanted him to figure out that he's doing everything he can for Hermione right now and that none of this is his fault."
Ginny looked up at him sharply. "He thinks this is his fault?"
The green eyed boy sighed and ran a hand through his messy mop of dark hair. "He thinks that Hermione would have never married Snape if he would have plucked up the courage to tell her how much he loved her all of those years." He shook his head. "Something tells me it wouldn't have been that simple, though. I think he's just fooling himself."
Ginny put her arms around her knees and rocked slowly back and forth, staring off into space as though contemplating something. At last, she said, "I know it wouldn't have made any difference to her. One night over last winter break the two of us stayed up late in the common room talking. I sort of let it slip out that Ron really cared for her." She blushed slightly, resuming her rocking as though ashamed and uncomfortable with her admission.
"What did she say?" Harry pressed.
"She said that she knew. She'd known for a long time, but she didn't want to say anything. I think she sort of hoped he would keep his feelings to himself. She didn't want to ruin their friendship with a romance, and she knew that it would be ruined because she never felt the same way about him. He was her best friends, and she loved him for that but that was the extent of how deep her feelings ran." She stopped rocking and laid her chin on her knees, staring right into Harry's eyes. "I didn't tell Ron because I didn't think he'd ever come out and tell her how he felt. I figured they would either drift apart over time and he would stop pining for her, or that he would finally come up with the strength to tell her and hearing the words from his mouth would change her mind."
Now it was Harry's turn to blush. "I did a stupid thing, then."
"Oh?"
He bit his lower lip and shook his head ever so slightly. "You know, when I told him to tell Hermione he loved her."
Ginny put her feet back on the floor and leaned her chin on the palms of her hands. "I don't know. It's been a long time now, and a lot of things have changed. I just don't think he should beat himself up over never admitting his feelings to her. She knew they were there, so I don't think that consideration of a future with Ron would have stopped her from marrying Snape."
Harry kissed her softly on the cheek. "You know, you didn't make things too much easier, though."
"Why's that?" She looked up at him quizzically.
"Now I have to decided between leaving him be so he can hate himself for never telling her, or telling him that she knew and didn't care, so he can hate himself for that."
"Hermione?" Ron again. It was early for him to be visiting. She didn't know if she had the strength after sitting through Dumbledore. Somehow, it seemed as though the Headmaster knew that she yet lingered inside the husk of her body. She would have to be more careful in the future.
He held her hand as she concentrated on being nothing. Quidditch had always been a bore to her. She supposed that some things never changed.
He, too, had held her hand as he showed her. She remembered the distant feel of his cold fingers intertwining with her warmer ones as she stared at the robed image of a wizard that seemed recognizable in the most distant sense of the word floating precariously above his obsidian pensive. At first she had blanched at the gesture, but, in time, she became grateful for his support.
Another prophecy, he explained to her. He made it sound so simple. She had seen her life falling away. She had always hated divination, but, in time, and under his guidance, she had come to see that the prophecies were anything but wooly and imprecise.
She remembered the way she had nodded in quiet understanding, neither of them needing to say anything, both of them too afraid to utter the words they should have spoken.
At that moment, he owned her.
She had floated through the rest of her days at Hogwarts in a surreal fog, trying to live the way she always had, to be the way she had always been. She couldn't find the strength to tell her friends so she kept them in the dark.
She remembered how Ron had been the first to show some concern towards her. He had seen the change, though he would have never recognized it for what it was. She had smiled bravely then and pushed him aside with a prefunctatory curtness that seemed to inhibit further inquiry from him.
As long as she could pretend it had never happened she would be able to hold on.
It was much the same now.
As long as she could pretend the next step must never happen…
"Ginny's thinking of going back to Hogwarts a couple days early," Harry announced to Ron the next morning as the two of them breakfasted together. Mrs. Weasley had taken off for Diagon Alley earlier that morning to visit the Apothecary and Ginny was upstairs with Hermione.
"So?" said Ron in a thick, surly voice.
Harry fought to keep the exasperation out of his voice. Ron was really becoming difficult to deal with. "So, I thought it might be a good idea if the two of us were to accompany her."
"Why?" Ron was staring out the window into the garden.
"Well," Harry said, "It would do you some good to get out of this house and away from Hermione, for one thing. For another, I thought that maybe we could take a look around and see what there was to see, if you know what I mean."
Ron looked at him incredulously. "You mean go snooping through Snape's stuff?" His eyes lit up for just a moment as though the though of mischievous activity had breathed new life into him somehow.
Harry shook his head. "No. I know Dumbledore would never let us do that. I though, though, that we might be able to get a look at Hermione's things. You know, see if there were any clues for solving the mystery that she left behind." His eyes twinkled slightly in the dim morning light. "I'd also like to have a little talk with Malfoy."
"What does Ginny think of all this?" Though Ron seemed far from enthused, his attention on the matter at hand was somehow reassuring to Harry.
"She thought of it."
"Oh. What does Dumbledore think?"
"Well," Harry drug out the first word and thinned his lips slightly. "I only managed to tell him part of the truth. I said we wanted to get some of Hermione's things for her to try to make the Burrow feel more like home for her. I think I convinced him that it would help to speed up the recovery process."
"He believed you?" Ron looked incredulous, and with good reason. There was little that had ever slipped past Dumbledore.
"Let's just say he Okayed it." Harry grinned sheepishly. "I sort of let it go at that. We're leaving this afternoon. Ginny already told your mum."
"Who's going to stay with Hermione?" Ron asked, a little bit of the light leaving his eyes. "I don't think we should leave her here alone."
"Look, Ron," said Harry, "Hermione is an adult. She is capable of caring for herself for a couple of hours between the time we leave and when your mom returns. We can make some lunch for her and take it to her and then leave. I'm sure she'll be alright." Ron opened him mouth to protest, but Harry held a hand up and stopped him. "Mate, you know that if you stay here you're just going to be moping on the couch anyway. It's not like she's going to be calling for you because she needs something. You know that."
Ron thought for a long moment before replying, "I suppose you're right." He rubbed his hands together briskly as he stood up and then clapped Harry on the back. "I hope it's worth it, though."
"So do I," said Harry, just a note of glum sneaking into his otherwise cheerful voice.
Alone.
For the first time since coming here, she could relax.
She threw herself out of the bed and paced about the room, stretching and flexing all of the muscles that had become sore from her self-induced sabbatical.
She was alone.
Except for the pain.
She lay back down, suddenly having lost the will to be free as the weight of all that was to be came crashing down upon her.
She tried to tell herself that it didn't have to be so but she had given up on that line of defense long ago.
It had been foretold.
She could almost feel it rushing towards her faster than she could escape.
The demons were coming hope to roost, and it seemed now that the burden was more than she could bear.
She tried to forget, but his voice lingered in her mind, chasing away all of the hope within her, washing away her tenuous grip on sanity.
There were some things no amount of time could erase.
She remembered light, and love, and laughter.
Now there dark, and hate, and tears.
She wished to die, but hadn't the will to end it.
The prophecy had to be fulfilled.
One must be sacrificed for the good of the many, and she must lead him to the alter of destiny.
She wondered if he would be waiting for her on the other side.
She wondered if he would forgive her.
Her wounded soul cried for the bliss of deliverance, but knew she did not deserve such rapture.
She tried not to remember him.
If she could only forget the life they had shared, the light, the love, and the laughter.
If she could only forget all they might have had.
If she could only forget how he had loved her.
Live. Breathe.
Behind the lids of her eyes, she saw his face.
She could not deny what she dreamed.
Live. Breathe.
He was taking over.
One for the good of the many.
The one she loved, the one that could have ended the loneliness, stopped the pain.
It wouldn't be long now.
She had always loved him, and she was afraid.
Safe inside herself, she carried all of her love for him.
One for the good of many.
Live. Breathe.
If she could only forget, only wake without knowing the truth.
Say goodbye…
Don't be afraid…
It would all be over soon…
"Nothing," Ron said, sighing as he finished searching through a small stack of papers in the corner. "This is just some old issues of Potions Quarterly and some newsletters." Angrily he threw down one stack of letters. "This is ridiculous. I thought that there had to be something here somewhere."
Ginny stopped rifling through the shelves housing all of Snape's books and looked up at her brother. "We haven't gone through everything, Ron. I've just started on these shelves, and you've only gone through one file cabinet and that stack of papers. Why don't you go into her bedroom and see if you can find anything there?"
Ron stalked off towards the small room that reeked of cabbage that the two of them had agreed must be Hermione's. He remembered how much lighter it had made him feel to see that, if nothing else, Hermione hadn't shared a bed with her husband. He shuddered when he thought of that, and willed himself to open her door and look around.
Everything inside was neat and clean. The bed was made, a homemade yellow quilt turned back and a pile of pillows arranged just so. Because of the old fashioned spells on the castle, Hermione had been able to enter he and Harry's dorm room while they were all living in Gryffindor, but he had never been able to visit her room. He assumed that it was always so orderly.
He opened drawers, quickly shutting one and blushing at the orderly pile of folded whit knickers and crisp stockings lying within. The next drawer housed clean undershirts. The third flannel pajamas. The closet was hung according to function and then by color, light to dark. He noticed that there was a lot of black.
He opened the trunk that he assumed had always held her school things and found it overflowing to the point that he assumed it must be bewitched in order to house the contents. It seemed as though she had saved every single piece of schoolwork that she had ever done and every text they had ever been assigned to read. Each piece was neatly filed away by year and then by subject and date. Grabbing a folder, he flopped down on the bed and began to rifle through, certain that the clues they were looking for were lying somewhere on a bit of parchment. He wouldn't rest until he had looked at everything she could have possibly left a message on.
He remembered as he read, astounded by the care with which she had done even the most mundane of tasks that had been assigned to them. Every mark was high. He wondered if she had ever failed at anything aside from her choice of husbands. He was more grateful to her now than he had ever been in all the time they had spent together as classmates. Looking back, he realized he would have never made it without her.
"Find anything?" Ginny asked as she stepped through the door over an hour later.
"You're finished with all of those books already?"
"Most of them. I'm taking a break."
He turned back to his reading, having just reached the third year. Ginny left seemingly disgusted at his refusal to chat with her. He had no time to waste if he was going to save Hermione, and he read like a man possessed. He had to know what Snape had done to her. Suddenly, he stopped, feeling like something was wrong.
The page before him was not neat and precise as the others had been. Instead, it was filled with notations, some passages underlined and others circled. Ron held the parchment closer and read it through carefully, wondering when Hermione had become so interested in Divination, especially considering that he could vividly remember her walking out of Trewlawney's class in their third year.
Eagerly, he dug through the rest of her "Divination" folder. Only some of the essays were marked in the same fashion as the one he had read. The rest were as clean as all of the other pieces he had looked through.
Stepping down from the bed, he made his way over to her trunk and opened it, rummaging around until he found her Divination book. Much of it was highlighted and annotated, but one section had been book marked. He opened to the indicated page and found himself staring at the chapter concerning Prophecies. Setting the book aside, he turned back to her papers and found that all those that had been sullied pertained to that same subject matter. He read through each of them carefully, but found nothing that would be of any help to him.
Frustrated, he carried the lot out to Ginny, who was now attempting to magically open a Gothic inspired desk in the corner of the study. "What do you think this means?" he asked, frantic to find an answer.
She looked over the pile deliberately, studying each piece. "Other than that she's interested in the subject of Prophecies? I haven't the slightest idea."
Ron looked crestfallen. "I know there's something to this, Ginny. She hated Divination. She thought it was a load of rubbish. She quit the bloody class, for Merlin's sake!"
Ginny threw her hands up in the air. "Maybe she decided to study it on her own. I don't know what to tell you other than keep looking. You might have found something, but it doesn't really tell us much at this point. If I were you, I would try the drawer in her nightstand."
"Why?"
She smiled softly. "Where else would a girl keep her diary?"
Ron nearly tripped over his own large feet hurrying back to the room he had just vacated. Sliding across the stone floor on a small square of carpet she had placed at the bedside he slammed into the nightstand causing a goblet of water on top to hurtle onto the floor. Not bothering to clean up the mess, he jerked the drawer open and began tossing the contents onto the bed.
Trembling, he picked up a book of parchment sheets bound in red leather and filled with Hermione's tidy writing and began to read.
"Malfoy." Harry's voice sounded cold and heavy as he descended the stairs he so well remembered, walking towards his nemesis.
"Potter," the blonde man acknowledged him, looking up from some correspondence he hastily shoved away. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same of you." He arched his eyebrows just so, peering callously through his glasses.
"I teach Potions here," Draco drawled. "Surely your scores didn't permit you to secure a teaching position here as well?" It wasn't a question.
"You know damn well that I play Seeker for Oxfordshire, Draco, seeing as I outplayed you to earn the position on the team. I guess there really are some things your father can't buy."
Draco shrugged. "Perhaps. It's possible though that he just didn't try hard enough."
Silence permeated the air for a moment before Harry continued, still standing a few steps up from the level at which Malfoy was. "Where is he, Malfoy?"
Draco's lips curled back slightly and he shook his head, adopting a tone that suggested Harry was a small child he had caught raiding the biscuit tin. "Well, isn't this interesting? You barge in here, insult me and my family, and then expect me to give you answers. I'm afraid that that simply won't do." He reached in his robes and pulled out his wand, making Harry tense visibly. "Jumpy, aren't we?" Draco laughed, continuing to twirl the wand in his hand. "Don't worry Potty, my big bad wand won't hurt you."
"Damn you, Malfoy!" Harry lunged towards his rival, his wand also drawn, but stopped himself as he reached the blonde. Standing toe to toe, he hissed, "tell me what I want to know."
Malfoy shook his head again, seemingly unperturbed by Harry's dramatic show. "I don't know anything about it, Potter, and I certainly have nothing to do with it. I don't know if Lucius does or not. For that information, I'm afraid you will have to have the misfortune of asking him." He turned his back, robes swirling at his feet and returned to the desk. "Was there anything else?"
Harry stalked over to the desk and held his wand straight out in front of him. Malfoy didn't so much as blink. "If I find out you're lying, Malfoy…"
Draco smiled. "One thing that you've always failed to understand, Potter, is why a Slytherin does anything."
Harry lowered his wand slowly. "I'm listening."
Malfoy shrugged as though it were obvious. "For what's in it for them."
The dark haired boy crossed his arms, his foot tapping against the stone floor impatiently. "I'm waiting."
"Do you really think that I want to spend my days here teaching this drivel to mindless drones like the riff raff they insist on allowing to flow through here? I am the Malfoy heir. I don't have to do anything, ever, if I don't want to. My duty is to donate to charities and gain power and prestige. I'm only here because Lucius arranged it without my consent. He said that Slytherin must remain in the proper hands now that dear Severus has departed. Just when I thought I had forever washed my hands of this institution and the way it has marked me, I find myself within its walls again, forced to aid the next generation in continuing the legacy."
"Just how did Hogwarts mark you?"
Malfoy licked his lips before answering. "My father went here, Potter. Everything my father did, I have to do. I am not my father, though."
Harry scoffed, "sometimes, Draco, I find that difficult to believe."
"Manners Potter. You shouldn't insult me so. I may be cold, cunning, ambitious, and willing to do nearly anything to achieve my own end, but I am not sick nor am I cruel. Mean spirited? Perhaps. But not cruel. You would do well to remember that. Good day, Potter."
Draco looked down at the paper he had left on the desk once again, leaving Harry no choice but to retreat.
"What was the Prophecy, Hermione?" Ron stood over her bed, the door shut and locked, his voice a gravely whisper. Reading her diaries had yielded little to him except for the fact that there was a Prophecy of some sort that had become an object of obsession for her sometime in the fall of their final year at Hogwarts.
She wouldn't answer, just lay there, looking frozen inside. He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since she had come to the Burrow and was astounded by what he found. Her hair was no longer as full and bushy as it had once been. Instead it hung in limp strands. Her face seemed sunken somehow, and old. It was as though she had aged half a lifetime since they had graduated. He felt himself shrinking away to nothing, his blood seeming to stop flowing in his veins.
"Hermione," he whispered, wondering if there was anything left in there. "I have to know. Please."
"What was the Prophecy, Hermione?" Don't blink. Don't wake up. She felt herself stirring inside, her blood starting to run, her soul unfreezing. He knew. God help them both, he had found out.
Breathe. Nothing. She was nothing. She would not come to life. As long as she could will it away. It couldn't be real.
It was coming full circle.
"Hermione, I have to know. Please."
You know not what you ask…
Don't wake up.
Never live again.
Don' bring me to life…
"I know you know what I'm talking about, Hermione. Please, you have to tell me. I have to know so I can save you." He stared down at her, pleading, begging, trying to see through her eyes to the soul he was certain still lived in side.
"You can't just leave it at this, Hermione. I know what this about, now. I have to know why. Why is it so terrible? What is the Prophecy?" Knowing would make it aright, he reasoned. If he just knew, he could help her. He could her, and he could stop the pain if only he knew the source.
He only needed a light so he could see…
"I have to know so I can save you." No one could save her now. She didn't want to be saved.
"You can't just leave it at this, Hermione." Turn your soul away. Try to hide. Close your mind.
"I know what this is about, now." What you know is nothing. There's so much more to come…
"I have to know why." Be careful what you wish for…
"Why is it so terrible?" Don't give in. Death before her eyes.
Standing next to her.
"What is the Prophecy?"
Close your eyes.
Run.
Hide.
Turn out the lights.
Fear the answer.
Fear the answer.
Fear the answer…
He stopped, stunned for a moment. She had closed her eyes and turned away. He reached down and shook her more violently than he had intended. "Tell me! I know you heard me! Tell me now!"
Nothing.
"Don't turn away from me like that! After everything you've put me through, you owe me that much. Don't even pretend that you aren't there, because I saw. I saw!" The words were pouring from him furiously and full of venom. Somehow, her reaction had pushed him beyond the edge. She was there. She was there, and despite everything, she was pretending not to be, and she thought him foolish enough to believe. He couldn't seem to stop himself as every sin he had ever committed seemed to converge on him at once. He felt like a mad man, and he had no choice but to release his pain.
"Tell me!" He screamed, clawing at the bed sheet, his eyes rolling. "Tell me!"
"Tell me!" The screams seemed to shatter all of the ice that had capped her heart. She wanted to die. There would be no salvation.
"I saw!" No. Tell yourself you didn't. Read between the lines.
"Tell me!" His urging was growing more violent, more insistent. She began to cry, salty trails of regret flowing down her cheeks. She stared at him, his eyes rolling like a demon spit from hell. Inside, there was no trace of the good man she knew as Ron Weasley.
"Tell me!" Where was the edge between reality and where she dwelt, alone.
She was falling.
She was burning.
She was dying, slipping over the edge and back into reality.
She clasped her ears to block out the dull roar that was the sound of all the pain she had ever lived through and seemed to come from everywhere and no where at once.
Make it stop.
Enditenditendit…