Chapter 28 – Here without you
Time passed by as slowly as it could or so it seemed to Hermione and Draco who were miles apart and couldn't communicate. They were missing each other terribly and they couldn't wait till this horrible situation was over.
Hermione was progressing well with her training. Draco was being sent out again and again to muggle houses to torture and kill and to provide the world with more proof that Voldemort was back out there and he was bigger and better than ever before.
Draco wished more than anything when he was out that he could just forget it all and go back to grimmauld place but he knew that he could never do that, he was always flanked by other death eaters and they always had to report everything that happened to voldemort.
He had stopped counting the death toll at two hundred and they were just his, he felt that every time he took a life inside him a little something died, he just prayed that by the time he saw Hermione again he wouldn't have lost his soul.
Hermione had taken to counting the days since she had last seen Draco and it was more and more depressing every day. She was fortunate to have such great people around her all the time and she felt that she owed them her sanity and strength.
She dreamt of Draco constantly and sometimes saw visions of people being tortured, she hoped these really were just dreams but then after seeing all the daily profit reports of muggle killings it just proved it was true, she knew when it said death eaters there could be no way that Draco wouldn't be involved, voldemort would be making them all do it. She really hoped Draco wasn't killing people and was just standing to the side. But deep down inside she knew this couldn't be the case because he would have been killed by now if not.
Draco was sitting in the astronomy tower one night just looking at the stars and wondering what Hermione was doing at that moment. If he had known he would have laughed. She was sitting at her desk reading through the notes she had taken on her training.
He missed her so much. He had a piece of parchment in his robe pocket and decided to write her a letter, he wouldn't send it. Voldemort would sense the owl. But he could write it and keep it.
Dear Hermione,
I can't even begin to tell you how much I miss you, I'm a hundred days older since I saw your pretty face. A thousand lights have made me colder and I don't think I can look at this the same. All the miles that separate us disappear when I dream of your face. I'm here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind. I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time.
Forever yours
Draco
(A/N this letter is taken from the lyrics to here without you by 3 doors down. A fantastic song)
He folded it up and put it back into his pocket and sat there for a little while longer. All of a sudden the gong for dinner went so Draco made his way down to the great hall with a heavy heart.
"I think we are talking days now" Dumbledore said to Hermione that evening after receiving updates on her training from all her mentors.
Hermione didn't take this news well in fact she began to shake and get very nervous.
"It's alright to feel scared" Lupin said sitting Hermione down "I think we all are really"
Hermione tried to reply but could only look like a fish out of water.
"Don't worry" Dumbledore said "the last couple of days of your training will be meditation and relaxing"
"Will
that help?" she finally managed to ask
"I think so" the
headmaster told her.
Hermione agreed to it and left to go to bed.
The next few days were tense for everybody and there was a definite atmosphere at grimmauld place. Right until the last moment.
"Hermione its time to go" Lupin said bringing her out of her trance
"Really?" she asked and sighed as she stood
The rest of the order had already assembled in the hall. Ron was stood to one side by the door to the living room
"Aren't
you coming?" Hermione asked
"no" he said "you guys don't
need me getting in the way"
"I could do with some moral support" she told him
"You want me to come?" he asked her
She looked up at him and remembered the first year at Hogwarts
"Yeah" she said "you never know they might have a giant chess board"
He laughed at that "I doubt it"
"I know, but you should be here for this, as should Harry. You two were and you are my best friend in all the world, and if I have to go through this alone then I don't really know what I am going to do"
"I think you are right, if it was Harry going then we would be here with him wouldn't we?" he asked
"You bet we would. I wouldn't miss it for the world" she said and smiled. It seemed such a long time ago that she had smiled.
"Let's do this"
"Ok" he said and grabbed his wand from the table
"I have the port key" Dumbledore said "it will activate in sixty seconds"
They all gathered round and took hold. This was no mean feat for thirty odd people. And……
The death eaters had just come back from their nightly outing and were assembled in the great hall to give voldemort his reports.
Draco stood in line and was trying to forget the screams of the people he had tortured that night. Snape just stood next to him quietly.
Voldemort called upon Draco
"Yes my lord" Draco said standing in front of the one he despised more than anyone in the entire world
"How did you get on this evening?" he asked him
"Very well my lord" Draco said "we took out ten houses"
"excellent"
voldemort sneered happily "you may rejoin your line"
Draco
went to bow as was customary, and as he did so the piece of parchment
so lovingly written slipped out of his pocket and onto the floor
'Shit' Draco mentally screamed 'maybe he didn't notice'
"Accio parchment" voldemort said and took the parchment out of the air as it sped towards him "now let me see what is this?"
He opened it and began to read. As he read Draco saw his face turn red and the look of sheer hatred was impossible to not notice. Snape looked at Draco and shook his head
'What had he done'
He couldn't believe he hadn't put a concealing charm or something on it.
"What is the meaning of this?" The dark lord screamed
"It's a letter to my girlfriend" Draco muttered "its very old, I had forgotten it was in there"
All of a sudden Draco felt as though knives were being driven into his brain. And his nose started to bleed. Soon enough it stopped apparently voldemort had finished probing his mind
"Liar" he shouted "I know now all of the truth you are a traitor, and you're little girlfriend will come to try and kill me will she?"
"Yeah and she's going to kick your ass" Draco shouted and waited, he waited for the curses to come, for there to be nothing more. He knew he would most probably die and would never see Hermione again. But he just stood there. Voldemort was staring at the back of the hall where there stood thirty or so people that he really didn't want to see.
Hermione stood in front of the rest of the group and was wearing a stunning silver robe that Draco had never seen before.
"Well I am going to try" she said and winked at Draco
Then all hell broke loose and curses ensued like crazy all over the place. Nobody dared stand still for even a second for fear of being hit. Hermione took out death eater after death eater as she ploughed through them trying to get to voldemort"
Draco was holding his own well in a corner when he saw Ron being backed into a corner by about eight death eaters. He ran over and started casting the killing curse at them all. Ron finally free from all his wannabe murderers thanked Draco and they split up to continue fighting. Draco hadn't even noticed the hundreds of aurors show up but they seemed to be coming off quite well.
Hermione neared voldemort when a death eater tried to curse her
"NO!" voldemort said
"What's the matter?" Hermione asked "you want to join our team?"
"Hardly" he scoffed at her "I want to know why you think you can beat me"
"Let me show you" she said and opened her bag. She took out the orb that Dumbledore had let her take for the occasion. She quickly looked around the hall, it was a massacre really. There were bodies everywhere and so much fighting. Yet here in front of Voldemort it was calm and Hermione didn't feel in danger at all. It was all so surreal.
"whats that?" he asked her as she placed it on the table in front of him.
"it's a test" she told him "don't be scared, you've done it before"
"Have I now?" he asked and inspected the orb "ah yes I remember now, you want to see do you? Not many would believe it"
He placed his hands on the orb and it quickly began to fill with the black liquid that Hermione had lacked on her attempt
As it was full a black pulsating aura eminated from him. And he grinned. It was pure evil at its worst and Hermione couldn't imagine anything worse.
"So you see" he said "I am the only person to ever solely fill it with one colour"
"That's what you think" she said and grasped it with both hands. It filled quickly with silver and once it was full again Hermione's aura filled the room
Voldemort looked a bit surprised
"Silver?" he asked "it's supposed to be black and gold, are you broken?"
Hermione laughed at this "maybe the orb is defective"
He looked at it and tapped it with his wand "I doubt that"
"well
why don't you try it again" she said he raised an eyebrow or what
would be eyebrows if he actually resembled something human.
"It's
a trick" he said
"Scared?" she asked him
"I am scared of nothing and no one" he said and grabbed the orb yet again. Only as he did so Hermione placed her hands on it also. The orb was filling with both black and silver. Hermione's palms were burning her and she was sure that his would be doing the same. But she couldn't have let go even if she had wanted to. It was like they were forced onto it now and would never let go.
As it began to fill the colours swirled together and once it was full Hermione's aura began to take over voldemort and his her. The air was filled with a silver and black light that was ferociously fighting each other. Hermione felt the darkness trying to take her. But she was meditating and managing to hold it back.
Voldemort however was having trouble with the light that was trying to claim him. It was making him feel happy and remember some of his nice memorys he had chosen to forget. It reminded him of the first girl he had ever loved. It reminded him of when he had first come to Hogwarts and how much he had loved it. He remembered his childhood friends and it hurt him. He had opened his mind to it and it was taking him over. He howled in agony. and he managed to finally wrench his hands off the orb.
"you bitch!" he screamed "how dare you?"
he pulled his wand on her, Hermione had pre-empted this and had her wand held towards him already
"you think you can beat me?" he asked "you think a pathetic excuse of a school girl and a mudblood one at that can defeat me?"
"I don't" she said and looked around the great hall dolefully "I know"
he just glared at her. "I am sick of these games, I am going to kill you now and your little boyfriend"
Hermione saw Draco out of the corner of her eye. He was holding up well as was Ron. They had teamed up and were taking out death eater after death eater. Ron wasn't killing them. He couldn't but he was slowing them down so Draco could.
"in fact I am going to kill them first, just so you can watch" voldemort said cockily
"he
raised his arm and shouted the killing curse. A stream of green light
flashed towards Ron and Draco. Hermione screamed and Draco didn't
notice. Ron did though and dived in front of Draco it hit Ron square
in the chest and he fell to the floor
"you bastard" Hermione
screamed and shouted "AVADA KEDAVRA"
then all was silent. She had killed him along with the rest of the deatheaters in a 5 foot radius
The rest of the deatheaters fled in a hurry and the aurors followed swiftly after. There was only about twenty or so left now so they would be fairly easy to apprehend.
Hermione stepped down from the teachers table and walked toward Draco. He was knelt over Rons body.
Hermione knelt down and closed rons eyes "that bastard" she swore and began to cry.
"he did it for me?" Draco asked her uncertainly
"Yes" Hermione said "and for me"
"Shit" Draco said and turned to her "he didn't have to you know. It was his choice"
"in a way, but I talked him into coming" she told him, " I should have let him stay back at the order"
"lets go and tell his parents" Draco said helping her up. He held her up as they walked out into the Hogwarts entrance where the remaining order members were.
"Hermione you did it" they all shouted and rejoiced her, they grabbed her and hugged her.
"please molly stop" Hermione begged the older woman who was hugging her
"whats the matter?" Mrs Weasley asked her
"its Ron" she told her
"Ron?" the elder woman asked
"he got hit" she explained and burst into tears
"no" Mrs Weasley said and began to cry. She was shaking.
Mr Weasley looked in shock then he began to cry and held his wife close to him.
All of a sudden the door from the great hall opened and Ron stepped out.
"Ron?"
they all asked
"it cant be" Hermione said and walked up to him
to see if it was really him
"its me" Ron said "I think he missed me"
"no Ron. I saw it, it hit you right in your heart" she told him certainly
Ron looked down at his chest, there was a scorch mark on his breast pocket. He reached into it and pulled out a photograph. It was of himself, Harry and Hermione when they were in third year. They had all been running along the grass arm in arm when colin had took a picture. Hermione had gotten three copies off him. And they had all had one.
"how come you had that in your pocket?" Hermione asked him
"I dunno really" he said "I just thought it might bring me some luck"
"I don't really know what happened" Dumbledore said "and I think sometimes we can look too hard for explanations. Lets just be happy it all ended well"
"amen to that" Mrs Weasley said, she was still red faced but she was gripping her son tight and it didn't look like she was planning on letting go anytime soon either.
Later that evening Hermione and Draco finally managed to get a minute alone together. He took her up to the astronomy tower and they sat looking at the stars.
"I wrote you a letter" he said
"so I heard" she laughed "so do I get to see it?"
"that, I think it might be lost somewhere in the great hall" he said "somewhere beneath the ashes and the rubble"
"it could be" she said "or it could be right here"
she held up a piece of parchment and smiled at him
"how did you get that?" He asked her
"voldemorts not the only one that can do an accio spell" she said and passed it to him
"I haven't read it you know"
"good" he said "its not right to read letters that you haven't been given"
she smiled as he passed it to her, she read it quickly and looked him in the eye.
"who would have thought we would have come this far and been through everything we have been through" she said
"this time last year, I thought you were the worst scum of the earth, my two best friends were all I really cared about, besides my parents, and now I have lost my parents, lost one of my best friends, almost lost the other one on a number of occasions and well as for you I kind of like having you around"
"youre not so bad yourself" he said and kissed her. They hadn't kissed for about three months and Hermione melted into the kiss. It said everything she wanted it to and more
"Hermione?" Draco asked
"yes" she said softly and her eyes met his. It seemed as though the whole world drifted away and there was just him and her. Nothing else at all.
"I was wondering something?" he said
"whats that?" She asked
"would you, well would you marry me?" he asked
"would I marry you?" she asked gobsmacked "I'd love to"
"well I think we should finish school first" he said
"I cant wait" she said
"and there was me thinking you wouldn't ever want school to finish" he said "I thought you were going to take up permanent residence in the library and stay here forever"
she playfully punched his arm
"I only know a few things right know" she said "and that's that I love you more than anything in the world and that wherever Harry is now I hope he is happy"
"I am sure he is" Draco said and put his arm round her. A shooting star streaked through the sky. Hermione closed her eyes and made a wish 'Harry may you rest in peace'
The End
thank you for being so patient and please let me know what you think. I am very uncomfortable with doing the battle things so let me know what you thought of that.
thanks for reading it and I hope you enjoyed it!
