Chapter 18: present day

Lost in his own world of pain, Draco felt that Hermione had gone before he heard the door to her bedroom click quietly shut. And when he realized she had chosen to walk away instead of to fight, he knew he had lost her forever. And his tears fell…

Hermione, still in shock over Draco's words, removed herself quietly from his presence. And when the door was closed behind her, she whispered both locking and silencing charms. Slowly, she crossed to her bed and lay down gently, as if in a daze. The hollow feeling of nothingness that had overcome her when she realized Draco's full betrayal ate at her gut as she stared at the white ceiling above her. It was easier this way, wasn't it? To just feel nothing? Yes, it had to be. For to know that the one true moment of purity, love and bliss in your life was nothing but a lie…a joke…would be too much to bear if the nothingness went away. And so Hermione willed herself to think and feel nothing as she turned to her side and curled up in a tight ball. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing…

Draco didn't know how long he'd been sitting there wallowing in his pain and misery before he began to worry for Hermione. The sun was setting. And he hadn't heard a peep from her since she left the room. Unless…had she left the house altogether? "Hermione?" he called out, his voice sounding unnatural in the silence around him. He listened but heard nothing. "Hermione?" he called again. Still nothing. "Damn!" he cursed as he fumbled with his magical bonds. "Damn, damn, damn," he muttered as he realized he could not free himself. "Hermione?" he called one last time. When he got no response he looked around the room for anything he might be able to use to free himself…

Hermione's room was a disaster. The nothingness she tried so hard to keep inside of her had been slowly replaced by pain…and it was a pain like no other. First came the chills. Then came the headache. Followed by a burning in her heart, in her stomach, and in her throat. And then the tears. Hot and hurtful, they seemed to scorch her cheeks as they rolled in torrents from her aching eyes. Frantically, she climbed from her bed and entered her closet. Returning to sit in the middle of the floor, she placed the small object she had fetched in front of her. And through her tears she magicked her school trunk to its normal size.

Robes. Parchments. Quills. Photos...of friends and happier times…of Harry and Ron…of Ginny and Hagrid…of Draco. With every page she turned in her album she cried for herself, for the loss of her innocence, and for the loss of the life she had loved. Closing the album and opening her wardrobe to gather her things, she cried for those who had been lost in the war…most of all for Harry. Packing her trunk once again with her essentials, her money and her photo album, she cried for Ron. But she could not cry for Draco. She would never cry for him again. And when she had completed her task and miniaturized her trunk once more, she dug through her school things still strewn across her floor until she found what she wanted. Then, treasure in hand and trunk in her pocket, she flung open her door to deal with Draco once and for all…

Draco was near to despair with fear he would never get out of the chair when he heard Hermione thunder down the hall. "Thank, Merlin," he began, but stilled when she entered the room. Her face may have been streaked with dried tears, but she was far from broken. Standing tall, he noticed a fire of determination in her eyes he had not seen since their early days at Hogwarts. She had thrown her hair up into a careless bun and was wearing her old Auror's cloak. And for an instant he was taken back in time. But any memories he may have wanted to visit were thrust from his mind as she raised her wand to him once more.

"You've left me no choice but to run again. And I hate you for it, Draco Malfoy. I hate you enough to kill you, but I won't. Instead, I will trade you your life for the honest answers to two questions." Draco could only nod. She deserved the truth, which was more than he had ever given her before today. He would answer her questions. And he would find a way to get her to stay. He had to.

Hermione lowered her wand in acknowledgement of his agreement to her terms. "First, Ron."

"Hermione," Draco began, shaking his head from side to side.

"The truth," Hermione said firmly. "Just the truth, Malfoy."

"Alright," Draco acknowledged. "I guess I should explain that all of the Death Eaters were gathered in my father's home to pick a new leader; someone to regain what had been so closely lost just a few years earlier."

"Yes, I know," Hermione cut him off. "I was there, remember?"

"Of course, I remember," he replied quietly. "But things didn't go as I had hoped."

"I would say not," Hermione said acidly, as she began to tap her foot in impatience.

Draco ignored her barb and decided to answer her question rather than to defend himself. He knew she wasn't ready to believe him anyway. "I tried to keep Lucius with me that night – after we escaped into the tunnels under the house – but forced me to separate from him in a better attempt at self-defense. I knew my way, of course, but my job was to keep whoever was following me occupied while my father managed to escape his pursuer. And so I ran down the dark corridor – slowly – toward my own exit.

"Give it up, Malfoy!" Draco heard as he ran from his pursuer. Weasley! Of all the people to follow him it couldn't have been someone else! "You'll never escape," he heard Ron's voice echo off the stones around him. "We've already captured your whole assembly. You may as well save yourself the trouble and stop already!" Draco continued along as he tried to ignore the voice of his nemesis. "Or are you truly a scared little ferret, Malfoy?" Ron's voice reached Draco's ears. "A ferret who never deserved anything better than what he got. A ferret who certainly didn't deserve – and will never have again – the love of my fiancée!"

At this Draco stopped cold. "Lumen flamare!" he muttered in a dark voice before the torch nearest him in the hallway sprang to life. He watched as Ron rounded the bend and screeched to a halt, his wand drawn, his chest heaving with the effort. "You are a liar, Weasley," Draco said in a low voice.

"Afraid not," Ron retorted. "We have everyone captured and…" He was cut off as Draco raised his wand in return.

"About Hermione," he shouted. "She would never marry you. Never." Draco's mind was reeling as he thought of the woman he still loved with all of his heart. She couldn't. She just couldn't marry Weasley. Not before she knew the truth!

"And why not?" Ron hollered back. "I love her. I treat her with respect. I take care of her. I would never hurt her..which is more than I can say for you, Malfoy!" Ron's countenance darkened as he channeled his years of frustrations toward the man in front of him.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Weasel," Draco countered in an equally loud voice. "As usual."

"Oh, I don't, do I?" Ron shouted. "You are lower than any creature I have ever encountered, Malfoy." A cruel smile formed on Ron's face. "You used Hermione. You made her believe that you loved her. You took away her innocence, her happiness, her optimism. Do you have any idea how long it took me – took all of us – to bring her back from the brink you left her teetering on? Do you, Malfoy? Do you?"

Draco's self-recrimination was quickly compounded by a growing sense of urgent awareness. Never before had he seen Ron Weasley this upset, this determined, this focused. Draco actually feared that blood might be spilled before he could escape once more. "Stop being so righteous, Weasley," Draco retorted. "You think I don't know? You think I did what I did for myself? For my father? For Voldemort?" Draco's eyes filled with tears as his anger grew within him. "You think I didn't face the same void? The same emptiness? The same nothingness? You know nothing about me, Weasley, so don't judge what you don't understand."

"Oh, I understand alright. I understand that you are a selfish, worthless, spineless…"

"Stop," Draco commanded. "Just stop before I…"

"Before you what, Malfoy?" Ron questioned. "What? Kill me? Not a chance! Not today! Not ever again! I love Hermione and she loves me. We've won, Malfoy." Draco shifted as he heard shouting from behind Ron. Someone was coming. "We've won this time, Malfoy, and there is nothing you can do to change that!" Knowing he was only inches from the hidden panel to his freedom, Draco decided to end the discussion before Weasley's backup arrived. Quickly he raised his wand to put out the light. But just as he did, Ron hollered an advanced binding and stunning curse in Draco's general direction…which missed him in the darkness and struck the wall just behind him.

Nothing could have prepared either Draco or Ron for what happened next. With its wards broken and its entrances compromised, the Manor shook with a resounding boom as the walls around them began to crumble. Rocked by the tremor and disoriented in the debris which began to fall, both men could only pray. And when the dust had settled, Draco stood with the light to his back, Ron crushed by rubble at his feet, and the love of his life staring at him as if he were the angel of death, himself. Draco watched as Hermione's face went from stunned to determined. And he knew Ron hadn't been lying. Hermione had loved the redhead. And now he was dead. And Draco fled the scene, knowing he had destroyed the love of his life again.

Draco turned his head to see Hermione, who had walked to the window during his tale. He knew he didn't have the right to, but he wanted to comfort her. To apologize, to explain, and to hold her again as his own. But she turned then, stoic and unreadable, and simply said, "Now, Harry." Draco looked at her for any sign of distress, but he saw none. "You are the only one living, except for your father, who was present and conscious that night. And since I won't be visiting Lucius anytime soon for tea and a chat, I need you to tell me, Malfoy. Tell me how Harry died."

Draco hung his head for a moment before he gathered enough courage to face Hermione again. "Harry had just left us to stand guard when I saw my father approach. You and Ron were so busy hurling hexes and casting spells that you didn't even see him creep up the side of the hill. And then he was there."

"Draco," he heard as his father positioned himself behind his son. Watching Hermione spin to his defense, he knew he had to act quickly or be the cause of her demise at his father's hand.

"Stupefy," he quickly shouted as he pointed his wand at Ron. Turning back to Hermione, he watched with tear-filled eyes as his soul mate could only gape at him in confusion. Quickly he whispered as he raised his wand to aim it at her necklace, "Sikkerhet." And without missing a beat, he quickly shouted, "Stupefy!" before she fell limply to the ground.

"Very good Draco," Lucius called as he turned from his approach on Potter and Lord Voldemort. "I knew you would come to your senses." Draco could only nod in assent.

"To be honest, once my father turned back to Voldemort, I scanned our perimeter for additional Death Eaters and then I came back to check on you and Ron and move you to the cover of the trees. I was going to try to help Harry, honestly. But by the time I reached their position, Voldemort was dead, my father was hurtling backward to the ground, and a large explosion of light and dust was all that could be seen in the place where Harry had been standing. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen.

"When I asked my father what he had done, he wouldn't tell me. He just smiled in his manic way and told me that he had killed 'the boy who lived.' He told me that our dreams were coming true and with Voldemort gone the two of us would rule together." Draco paused. "He was crazier than I had ever seen him. Merlin knows what he would have done if I had let him stay any longer near that ridge. Harry was gone. Voldemort was dead. You were protected. There was nothing more I could do but force him to leave…to leave you alone."

Hermione swiped a lone tear from her cheek as she gave a frustrated sigh and lowered her lids over her stinging eyes. "Harry," she whispered before chewing on her lip in concentration, unaware of the twitchy effect she still had on Draco. "Sikkerhet," she repeated almost inaudibly. "Where…?" she questioned her brain silently as she struggled to remember where she had read the word. "Of course!" she said aloud as she raised her head. "From the Norwegian Book of Spells. I found it in the library one day during sixth year and tried to study it, but found the word derivations too confusing to bother with on top of my other studies."

"I know," said Draco. We studied together that afternoon and I found it on the table after you left. I thought a few extra spells tucked under my belt couldn't hurt," he half grinned, despite the gravity of the current situation.

"Sikkerhet, meaning safety," continued Hermione. "…used as a protecting charm again evil hexes and curses." She stood and walked toward Draco slowly. "Why?" she asked quietly, searching his eyes for the truth.

"I knew I had to betray you, but I didn't want to hurt you if I could help it." Hermione stopped her approach as she felt her heart harden again. "So I did the only thing I could think of. My mother's necklace, the one I gave to you, was originally designed for a loftier purpose than its beauty. It was crafted to hold spells for short periods of time – glamour spells, invisibility spells, protection spells. That was what I meant when I told you I wanted to give you a gift that would give you strength when I couldn't." Draco furrowed his brow before continuing.

"I know it doesn't mean anything to you now and I'm sure you destroyed the necklace years ago, but I want you to know it was important to me and, therefore, it meant something when I gave it to you. My father gave it to my mother when they were young, when they were first in love, before he became the man I knew growing up. She quit wearing it when he changed, but she never got rid of it, because it reminded her of whom he used to be. It gave her hope somehow that he would become his old self again. But that never happened."

Hermione walked as close to Draco as she dared before stopping once more. "Hope is overrated," she said quietly, before opening her hand to reveal the necklace she had been holding. "I, too, used to hope… But that hope did nothing but prove me a fool time and again...for years." She tossed the necklace into Draco's lap and backed away from him toward the door.

"You will be free of your bonds and will be able to retrieve your wand in thirty minutes time." Draco made to interrupt her but she held up her hand to silence him as she opened the door now at her back. "We have nothing more to say to each other. Goodbye, Draco," she said without emotion. And then she was gone.