Disclaimer: The situations presented in this story are based on concepts and characters owned by J. K. Rowling and her publishers. I am not making any money off this story, nor will I ever.

Author's Notes: Well, I decided that I'd split the flashback chapter into two chapters because when I got to the end of this one, it seemed more like an end and less like a middle. I apologize for the short chapter. Also, I'd like you to note that these flashbacks take place before all the other ones. I hope that's not too confusing. I didn't mean to do that when I started:)

Thanks to Barbarella for pointing out that this chapter had somehow become chapter 9. I was playing around with the chapters, editing out things I didn't like and adding new things, and I messed up the order of the chapters.

Chapter VII: All in the Past

by Jenni

The pelting rain was making things difficult. Harry observed proceedings from the hilltop, standing numbly in the downpour while clutching his great coat around him in a vain attempt to keep out the chill. His teeth were chattering, and his icy hands could barely feel the cloth they were so cold, and he was trying hard not to shiver. He didn't deserve to shiver. As far as Harry was concerned, he had it easy.

The valley below was still filled with the frenzied traffic of medics and stretcher-bearers going to a from the battlefield, even though the battle had ended five hours before. Five hours before, and yet the outcome was still impossible to estimate. But as he watched the scurry of the men and women below, struggling in the mire of dirt and rain and blood, Harry saw it couldn't have been an advantageous one. The stench of blood and the groans of the dying filled his senses, even from his far-off vantage point.

One man was tossed from his stretcher during the commotion, and landed face down in the mud. He thrashed a bit as the doctors rushed to his aid, and then slipped themselves.

Harry didn't want to look anymore, but he did not turn away. He stayed because he knew that somewhere in that mess was Hermione. If she had been lucky, that is. Ron and Ginny were scouring the field, hoping to catche a glimpse of her. Hoping as well that what they saw wouldn't be a corpse.

'I shouldn't have left her side,' thought Harry, and he pulled his coat even more tightly, until the seams threatened to rip, and his neck became red as the collar cut into it. His hands were clenched around the wool lapels, so forcefully that his wand was almost at its snapping point. Everything in his mind and body was numb.

Somehow, in fifteen minutes he had to report to headquarters, to tell his commanding officers what had become of his unit. Out of one hundred, perhaps fifty remained. Fifty, not including Hermione.

'How did I lose her?' he asked himself again, and replayed events as if he would had he lost a bag on a train. But Hermione was not a bag, and when he tried to retrace the hours all he could see was the blur of battle. She was there one moment, and then she wasn't.

To make it worse Harry felt that he had never loved her more until this moment when she was gone. He hadn't even known that he did love her until now, but looking back on it he couldn't see how he could have missed the signs. Hermione was his conscience. When he was irrational, she was his voice of reason. When he was angry, she was there to soothe him. When he cracked a joke that no one else understood, she was his faithful audience. He had taken it all for granted, but Harry swore if she survived things would change. For one, he wouldn' t have her constantly risking her life just to make him happy to have someone at his back in a fight. Hermione deserved better than that.

He wanted to go back and look. He knew if he could go back he would find her because he had always found her. Perhaps he would have gone too, if the colonel hadn't come up behind him and clapped him on the back.

"You fought well, Potter," he said. "I've got a dozen witnesses. They may put you in for a medal."

Harry didn't answer.

The colonel studied him sympathetically. "I know none of that matters to you, but try to think of yourself as an example. It's good for morale."

He nodded.

The colonel conjured up a writing tablet. "Now, what's the status of your unit?"

The mud was choking her. It was thick and tasted coppery like blood. Then Hermione realized there was blood mixed in with the dirt that she was tasting. She tried to spit out the filth, but to no avail. In fact, the little bit of movement she could muster only made her sink deeper. A centaur had fallen on top of her paralyzed body, and with each hour she sank a little further into the blood-soaked ground. Soon, she knew, her mouth would be filled with mud, just as her nose was. If someone didn't find her soon, she would drown.

Around her, Hermione was keenly aware that the silence was growing. Before, there had been distinct groans and cries for help. Morbid and disturbing as they were, Hermione had found them comforting. As long as there were cries, the medics would keep coming. But now a terrible silence had replaced them, and she was alone among the dead. At times she feared that perhaps the ambulances would become disheartened and leave their grim task to be completed in the morning. It was simply a matter of whose hope held out longest. For Hermione was also concerned for the wound she had sustained in her leg. Was is still bleeding? She couldn't feel. Ironic that she had been felled by something as simple as a paralysis curse, something she herself had performed as a child. And even as she had fallen, it had been inconceivable to her that she would be drowning in the dirt countless hours later.

Ironic as it was, Hermione supposed that the centaur whose weight was now pinning her to her doom, was the only the thing which kept her alive. Her wounds had been extensive, but the pressure caused from being crushed into the dirt most assuredly would keep her from bleeding to death. Of course, the wounds wound be slathered in muck, but that could be fixed by a simple anti-infection spell. Hermione had learned those at Hogwarts. She could do them with her hands tied behind her back. So could Harry...if only Harry would come. The thought of Harry foiled the distraction which her analytic assessments had provided. Her eyes threatened to spill over with tears, but Hermione refused to let them fall. Should she weep, she might risk dehydrating herself further. And she must not let that happen. Harry and Ron would be beside themselves if they didn't find her alive. Harry most of all, she decided. Yet time driveled on, no one came, and Hermione felt herself growing tired. Her eyes closed against her will, hastening the approaching darkness. Yet she couldn't even yawn or shake her head to help herself. A question entered her mind of whether it was worse to die in such pain that she begged for the end, or feeling nothing, and going so quietly and painlessly that the end would slip in before she could stop it? 'Harry...'

Draco had not participated in the battle, but instead had been confined to the command tent, listening to their orders and haphazard strategies with an increasing sense of gloom. As a spy, he could not risk exposure of his cover (or so he was repeatedly told). He was more valuable at a safe distance from the fighting, and he understood this. But the angry child in him still desired that sort of glory that could bring attention and acceptance. At this point, Draco didn't know which he desired more. Before the fighting had even ended, he had extricated himself from the other officers, and had walked the behind-the-lines area in his spotless uniform, scowling at the action. He had climbed the very same hill on which Major Potter would stand in the evening and watched the proceedings in the valley. What he had seen was a much more orderly line of ambulances, for the rain had not yet reached the point of downpour, and the mud was not yet a perilous mire of men and blood. Far upon the horizon he had seen the ragged line of the battle.

'I've been through just as much,' he had told himself. 'I've seen my fair share of danger, and risked my life as much as they, but everything I have done is squandered by these bumbling assholes. Everything they do somehow translates to legend.' He might have stood on that overlook for an eternity, but despite the petulant nature of his thoughts, Draco was a man grown. Rather than stand uselessly like a pillar of salt, Draco preferred to make himself useful. And by now his sight had wandered from the far off battlefield and back to the line of medics heading toward the hospital.

Ron was too busy to be discouraged by the carnage in the hospital tents. His eyes skirted left and right, moving too quickly to fix on any one visage. Behind him was Ginny, less harried in her pace, and more thorough in her search. Every once in a while she would stray from his side, to take a closer look at a hospital bed, but to no avail. Hermione was nowhere to be seen.

They called vainly, but their voices were drowned out by the wails of the sick and the shouting of the doctors. Someone should have put a silencing spell on the tents...and perhaps one to improve the lighting as well.

What the tents had been charmed to do was to go on forever. Rows and rows of beds lay ahead of them, and yet deep in his heart Ron sensed that Hermione didn't occupy a single one. Nevertheless, he was prepared to trudge on when Ginny cried out from behind.

"Ron!"

He swung around. "Is it her?"

Ginny looked up mournfully, her lively eyes dulled and her cheeks drained of color. "No. ...It's Fred."

The night sky was devoid of light, but Hermione couldn't tell. Nor could she have discerned one from the other at the moment when the centaur was lifted from her broken form.

She didn't hear her rescuer cry for help, nor recite the counter curse. But when her limbs were free again, a subtle smile crept over her lips.

"We can't take her. There aren't any stretchers available." barked one man.

"Then I'll carry her. She needs help now."

The meaning of those words didn't register in her mind, but she could feel strong arms hoisting her up. She let out an involuntary cry of pain as the wound in her leg protested.

"You can't do that, it'll open up again."

"Well, I'll float her to the hospital."

"It's against policy."

"Bollocks! I'm a qualified wizard, not a squib like you. I'm not going to drop her."

Suddenly, Hermione was riding on a cushion of air. Her eyes fluttered open for the briefest of seconds, but she couldn't make out the shadow looming over her. Was it Harry? She tried to reach out to it, but her arm felt too heavy. It was about to flop down, when the man caught it, and set it gently over her chest.

His hands were rough, and the cuff of his sleeve brushed her face as he arranged her arm. His scent was unfamiliar, yet comforting and it lingered in her mind as she drifted back into unconsciousness.

Draco knew he was unwanted in the infirmary, and that was all the more reason to stay beside the woman he had found. The doctors had not yet found the time to take notice of her, for there was a long line. Furthermore, since she had no stretcher he would have been forced to abandon her on the cold ground before he could go elsewhere. He thought of conjuring a bed for her, but that would only cause chaos in the already unmaneuverable vicinity.

He stared at her filthy face, half caked in mud, and suddenly felt irritated without knowing why. And so he set her on the ground anyway, and raised his wand for another spell. "Purgo lutum!" he commanded.

All filth suddenly disappeared from her face. Draco was stunned for a moment by her identity, but mostly he was amused. "Mobilicorpus," he said, and her clean body rose off the ground once more. He couldn't suppress a chuckle, "Well hello, Mudblood."

When he looked up he noticed another medic, waiting with a similar patient and staring at him in disapproval. His snarky grin promptly faded.

"Draco Malfoy, is it?" asked the other man, but it was more of a statement.

The desire was strong in him to say yes because Draco was proud of his own name. It was a good name, or so it had been in the past. It had once commanded respect, but now it was more associated with the enemy and with evil. So the other part of Draco prevailed: the part of him that wished to avoid trouble more because he was tired of defending himself. Draco stared back at the other man and shook his head. "I don't know who you're talking about," he half-snarled.

The man before him seemed ready to apologize, but before he could speak further, a nurse appeared through the tent flap. Draco felt relieved that he had escaped from hearing that git apologize for having mistaken him for someone so despicable as a 'Malfoy.'

What Hermione was aware of first was a pair of arms, possibly two, settling her down on something cold. A bed? And one pair had that same smell of those arms that had carried her from the field. But when her confused vision settled, it settled on the image of a silver-blond head, bowed over her. She tensed immediately when she saw who it was.

Malfoy... Had she been captured?

His head lifted a little, and gray eyes peeked through his messy hair. He was watching her. Her breath caught in her throat, but it was not from fear.

Unfortunately, her weak body couldn't take the strain. She coughed a little, and he lifted her so she was sitting more upright.

"Thank..." she murmured, and closed her eyes again.

"Are you cold?" he asked. Hermione didn't understand what he was saying. She understood the words, but her mind was so exhausted that she couldn't put them in a context that meant anything. Hermione knew that he was hovering over her, waiting for something. Hermione wasn't sure why he cared so much, but it seemed important to him that she be comfortable. For his sake, she tried to speak.

"I'm going to get you a blanket if I can find one," he said before she had the chance, turning to go.

Hermione couldn't even nod, but began to slip back into the dreamworld. But she was no longer worried. 'I remember now,' she told herself, 'Malfoy is good.'

She didn't realize that she had said it out loud. And she didn't see that one meter away Draco had paused in his steps when he had heard it.

He savored her words for a moment, committing them to memory. And when he rushed away, it was not in anger, but with an eagerness to complete his self-appointed task.