Author's Note: Well, here we go. It's the next to last chapter. I've been writing this goddamned thing for ages, and I just wish I could finish it. But this is pretty much it. All that's left is maybe one more chapter and an epilogue.

Chapter XIV: The Promise

by Jenni

Hermione whirled onto the front step of her flat, leaving a restless breeze behind her as she completed apparating. She hadn't bothered to explain anything to Harry or Ron or Narcissa, nor had she finished pulling her flat keys from her pocket when she shouted the spell to apparate. It was dangerous to apparate so quickly, but Hermione hadn't cared. Now her hands were shaking as she fumbled to find the correct key. The metal jingled in a frantic way, evidencing her state of mind. She hadn't felt so giddy to see anyone since the war.

Every time a platoon had come back, she had stood on her tip toes by the camp gate, waiting for her friends to stumble in with their filthy, haggard bodies, either held proudly in victory or rigid with defeat. She would push to the front if there was crowd. As the war lingered on, fewer and fewer people went to the gate to welcome the soldiers home: most had found the experience too painful; but Hermione had still gone. And she always felt that mad rush of joy to see Harry and Ron or Parvati and Padma and Neville any anybody walk through the iron gate. She had never waited for Draco there. His missions were always secret: no one knew he had gone and no one heard of his returns.

She had waited once...when she had been informed that a mission in Romania had been successfully completed. He hadn't told her where he was going when he left, but when the details of Voldemort's Last Stand had been revealed, she had known Draco had gone to Romania. Except he didn't come through the gate with the others, and so she assumed that mission must not have been his. Only now she knew he had been in Romania. He hadn't walked through that gate because if he had, the Orpheus Curse would have killed her.

So Hermione felt giddy, fearful, hopeful, grateful... Why did she have so many bloody keys? Good God, she'd never get the door open. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she thought of the reunion she ought to have given Draco, and the reunion she was about to give Draco.

Her trembling fingers at last alighted on the correct key, and she pressed it into the doorknob. It took her three tries to turn the key before she stopped and forced herself to calm down. It wasn't as if she hadn't seen Draco recently. It had only been a little over a day since she had left him.

Oh God, he's still stupefied! she remembered. My poor boy... Please, for his sake calm down and turn the key.

It turned.

She entered into the main hallway of her flat, and hastened up the stairs to her door: the one that said, "7, Granger" above the knocker. This time, she managed to unlock the door without any fumbling. However, once she heard the latch disengage, she found herself reluctant to enter within.

A curious premonition kept her standing outside, feet squared over the tacky door mat that Mrs. Weasley had given her for Christmas as if it were quicksand. This happiness of hers couldn't last. Something was still dreadfully wrong, and the mystery was far from solved.

But...

"Draco?"

She awoke to find her lover leaning down, pressing a light kiss on her forehead. It felt wrong. Chaste and loving, but too much like a farewell. He was holding a duffle bag that was stuffed almost to the drawstring, and his shirt was buttoned and tucked half way into his trousers. He had stopped only to kiss her.

"Draco, what's wrong?"

He didn't blink when she called his name, but remained still, committing her beauty to memory. She knew that was what he was doing. Draco never could be quiet unless something dreadful was about to happen.

He cupped her face with his hands, calloused, masculine hands that smelled of the laundry he had been stuffing into his bag. Normally, she might have kissed the palms or leaned into his touch, but tonight Hermione was too afraid of what he might do if she moved. Perhaps he would disappear like a ghost.

He went on missions all the time, but he never behaved as he was behaving now.

"Where are you going?" she asked him. "Am I allowed to know this time, or...or is it one where I can't?"

He still held her in his hands, and without any trace of sorrow or regret he kissed her lips. Lightly first, so she would not have time to lean into his embrace before he pulled back.

Draco was smiling when she opened her eyes. Smiling? She failed to understand why anyone would smile before going on a mission. "It's one where you can't know," he said.

"So it's just reconnaissance?" she asked, hopefully. "Those are always quick."

The tears fell freely when she saw him shake his head. Why wasn't he saying anything? Why was he smiling when he was going to leave her? She asked him why, and he answered thus, standing so she was alone on the bed.

"They've entrusted me with a mission," he said. "Hermione, a real mission, with a noble objective. Someone actually submitted my name for a recommendation."

Hermione swallowed, taking it all in, remembering the days she had held him in her arms, running her fingers through his hair, and telling him that she understood his worth, even if no one else could recognize it.

She felt pride for him, and gnawing fear all at once. And she would not voice her suspicion that someone would only recommend a mistrusted figure like Draco for a mission if that person wanted to get him killed. It wouldn't do to take away his little triumph. And maybe someone had put in a legitimate recommendation...but the realist in her knew it wasn't so. No one on the base trusted Draco except for her.

The mission must be dangerous then; and Draco knew it, which was why he was kissing her like it was the end and buttoning his goddamned shirt and stuffing his pants into the duffle bag unfolded, because he didn't see the point in having folded underwear where he was going and maybe the duffle bag was just for show, so she would think he was going to where there would be a bed and running water and safety...

Don't start sobbing, she told herself. Don't do it.

Hermione clamped her hand over her mouth and bit into the flesh of her finger to stop her teeth from chattering and her throat from clenching. She was certain she would vomit. Her shoulders were shaking, and she could no longer see through the sheet of tears forming in her eyes.

Draco was still packing his duffle bag when he looked up to see her silent struggle. A cry caught in his throat and he came to her.

That bastard, she thought. He's leaving me to go play soldier, except there's no playing in war. He's going to die, and he knows it. What am I supposed to do if he dies? I couldn't live, and yet, I would. I would go on without him, but my life would be over. Does he know that too, the bastard?

"Couldn't you have said no?" she whispered, choking out the words even as she fought to stop herself. His eagerness to leave defeated any thought of sending him off without protest. His eagerness was betrayal itself.

Draco sat beside her once again, pulling her hands away from her face and pressing them against the thick wool of his shirt. She flattened her palms against the breast pockets. How many times had she done this just before they made love? Would she ever do it again?

"You could have said no," she repeated. She could claw his eyes out right now, and they (whoever those bastards were) wouldn't want him for their stupid mission. Her nails locked into the cloth of his shirt.

If Draco noticed, he didn't show it. He merely shook his head. "Hermione, you understand me well enough now to know I couldn't have refused."

"Yes, you could have!" she insisted, growing stubborn despite herself. She took her hands and shoved him away from her. "You could have done it for me."

At least he didn't go back to buttoning his blasted shirt.

"Hermione, please don't do this. I have to go," he begged.

She brushed aside another one of his attempts to touch her, but all the while dreading he would stop. As long as they fought, Draco would stay. He wouldn't leave if they were on bad terms. That was the way of soldiers: no one should leave angry.

"I need to go."

That was what cut more deeply than anything. He needed to go.

Hermione didn't answer. She did understand...she was an officer too, and she knew what it was to be shut out of the fight. But she had wanted to fight beside her friends, to be near them, to protect them. She hadn't wanted to go hundreds of miles away from them. And why should Draco need to do anything?

Wasn't she enough?

"Look at me," he asked, but it was more of a demand. So Hermione didn't budge.

"Goddamnit, Granger, you stubborn ass! Look at me or I'll make you look!"

It was a reflex from their school days that she hadn't even known existed. But she snapped at him, looking him squarely in the eye. "You can't make me do anything I don't want to, Malfoy!"

He bent down to kiss her before she knew what was happening; and when he pulled away only seconds later, he was smirking at her. It had worked. Draco was kneeling at her feet, but she was doing what he wanted her to do.

"Listen," he demanded. "I love you. I've never loved anything else in my whole life like I love you now, at this moment. And I'll still love you tomorrow and the next day and the next year and forever. But you must let me do this. Otherwise...what am I worth? How can I ever feel worthy of you if I don't go?"

"Draco, you'll always be..."

He stopped her. "Sssh. No... I promise to come back."

Hermione sighed and tried to push him away again. "You can't promise that sort of thing. You can't keep your word. Or you may not want to."

"I promise," he said, holding her arms tightly so she couldn't pull away. Draco raised himself up so he was staring straight into her eyes. Hermione was taken aback by the earnestness she found in his gaze. He was being honest, and vulnerable and so very different from the man who hadn't wanted to admit she was anything to him besides a flight…and he meant it. Draco had come full circle, and the light of his long-sought heroism was shining in his face like the first rays of the morning sun upon the water: blinding and beautiful to witness. She was unable to tear her gaze away.

"I promise to come back to you. Do you understand?" There was not one single tremor in his voice.

"You just want me to stop crying so you won't feel guilty when you leave," she insisted, but her denial lacked feeling. She ceased to resist him, and soon she was enfolded in his arms.

Long after she had ceased from crying and Draco was almost out the door, he seized her hand. It almost hurt because he squeezed so hard.

"I promise," he repeated. He seemed so desperate for her to believe it that for a few seconds at least Hermione could no longer doubt him.

She squeezed his hand back. "Then I'll wait for you, Draco Malfoy. But if you don't come back, I'll hate you."

He smiled, and Hermione expected the same sort of flippant response. But instead Draco shook his head and kissed her hand like a knight would his lady. "I could never hate you...not under any circumstance."

Hermione opened the door to find shadow and darkness. She had never opened the blinds, and Draco obviously couldn't do it in the state he was in.

She stepped over the threshold into her flat, leaving the door slightly ajar so as to let in a little light before she got to the lamp. She should be careful not to stumble over his body. However, when she looked down at what she thought should have been Draco, she saw nothing but the carpet.

She gasped in surprise. How?

Suddenly, a great mass shoved her against the rigid paneling of the door, slamming it shut so cruelly that the walls quaked from the impact. At first, she saw nothing but darkness, but she could feel the thick silk of a cape, and two strong arms pressing against her chest, almost choking her.

"So, did you honestly think that silly little spell would keep me out of commission?"

It was Draco's voice, but Hermione was still too full of her new knowledge to fear him now.

"I'm sorry," she said, with sincerity, thinking that the door knob was pressing into her lower back like a dull barb.

"Lumos!" he cried, providing light.

Hermione found herself facing scarred Draco, the one with wrinkles on his brow that made him look ten years older and the jagged ridge of ruined flesh over his cheek. For the first time since his reappearance, she did not regard it with revulsion.

Instead, she reached out and touched it, with a reverent affection. "Did you get that in Romania?" she asked.

Draco recoiled from the contact and released her. "No," he answered, sounding confused.

Hermione took advantage of her freedom by traveling around the room, turning on the lamps. She could have opened the blinds, she supposed, but the new Draco had always seemed to prefer the darkness. And since she had decided to give him a fair chance to explain himself, she thought she ought to make him comfortable.

"Where were you?" he barked. It sounded like a command.

"Malfoy Manor, talking with your mother. And...I found something."

Draco began pacing the floor, uninterested.

"Don't you want to know what I found?"

Hermione watched him pacing over her floor, rubbing his temples with his fingers like he was trying to dig out some memory.

"Draco?" She crossed the room and reached for him, but he slapped her hand away.

"Get to the point!" he cried, cursing under his breath.

"I found your counter curse...the one you spent all that time trying to find...I understand now. Although, you really didn't have to steal the Blossom Gem, you know. That muggle dealer probably would have given you the Logoi for a couple gold galleons. He didn't know what the book was worth..."

Suddenly she realized that Draco was laughing. Not the fun type of mirthful laughter that is supposed to come after a truly good joke, but twisted, angry, almost maniacal laughter. Draco had thrown his head back and was laughing.

Hermione assumed he was laughing at the irony of the situation: how he would now be wanted as a thief.

"Harry will smooth everything over with the ministry, I'm sure. Or…he will if I ask him to."

But Draco wasn't listening to her now. He was tearing at his hair and stomping on the ground like a man caged in a cellar, who is trying to find a way out.

"A counter-curse!" he roared. "Of course, there's a counter curse!"

At this point, Hermione realized that she was sorry she had ever come home. She had thought her revelation would mean something, but all she received was mockery. He had destroyed the beautiful picture of their reunion utterly. Perhaps there was nothing left of the good man she had loved so well. This Draco was continually a disappointment.

"Stop laughing," she requested, simply. "I don't understand you. I thought you would be happy that I know."

Draco snapped, whirling around so quickly that Hermione reacted by covering her face for fear he should strike her. "Know?" he spat. "KNOW? You don't know anything about me. All you think about is your Draco. Your good, clean, pure as the driven snow, Draco who would do anything for you. He'd chop off his arm for your sake if he had to."

"My Draco?" she gasped.

"Don't you think I would have!" he continued. "I would have done anything…if only…if…anything; I still can. I did…"

"Oh God," she groaned, wounded to the quick as the revelation stormed within her heart and mind. "You're not him... You never were."

The tirade ceased, and he glowered at her, jaw taught and every muscle in his body screaming hatred and pain. "No. I never was."

"Who are you? What have you done with him?"

"So many questions," he said, almost too softly for her to understand. Then louder, he shouted, "What about my questions? What did I do wrong? Why am I not enough? Never enough! It's never enough..."

Hermione pulled out her wand and pointed it straight at his heart. Her hand was perfectly steady as she contemplated the exact curse she was preparing to speak. She would go to Azkaban, but perhaps that no longer mattered... " i>What did you do with him? /i>"

He laughed again, this time a bitter laugh full of irony and humiliation. She sensed that he was no longer mocking her. Then he, whoever he was, grabbed her arm and hauled her to the door. "I'll show you what I did with your Draco."

"Let go of me."

"I've crossed mountains and deserts and the ages themselves so I could touch you, and now you want me to let go," he mumbled. Then he yanked her close to him. "I won't! Not so soon after everything I've had to endure to get here."

He dragged her down the steps and out the flat, moving at such a brisk pace that Hermione had to run in order to keep up. He kept muttering incoherent nothings under his breath so she couldn't hear or understand, but he would often punctuate what he was saying by jerking her arm hard or by pulling her closer to his side. They continued so until they were near the main center of town and Hermione was panting. The cobblestone road had ended just past the inn, and there was a brooding little forest before them.

Draco halted them there, allowing Hermione to catch her breath. However, his grip on her arm was as forceful as ever.

"Let me go! I still have my wand, and I swear I'll kill you."

"I'm taking you where you want to go. Just keep up. That's not too much to ask."

He pressed her onwards, veering from the road and heading directly into the wood.

"It's rather a lot to ask," retorted Hermione, at last prevailing in her struggle to free herself. "For all I know, you could be dragging me to some dungeon or torture chamber." She pushed him away and tripped on the uneven soil beneath her feet; yet she did not fall, and when she had righted herself, she brandished her wand before her like a sword.

Her captor stopped, and Hermione raised her wand higher, prepared for anything. But he made no attempt to regain his hold over her. "A torture chamber? You think so little of me?" was all he said. She saw that he was hurt and was not bothering to hide how much her opinion of him hurt.

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I don't know you. You're nothing to me except my informant. Now where is Draco?"

"He's here."

"You're a liar!" she cried, pointing her wand at him with renewed force. "You can't be him. And I don't want you to look like him. You're not my Draco. You're...a lie. A perversion."

"I can't look like anyone else. I can look just like him. I can use the Polyjuice Potion; but otherwise this is me."

"Dice Veritatem!" she incanted, and fire burst forth from her wand to encircle him. She drew nearer, unafraid that he should hurt her. She wanted him to try, if only to give her another excuse to kill him. "Now, you can only speak the truth."

"Except I have not lied to you," he spat back, his voice low and dangerous. "This is how I truly look; for I am Draco. Or a sort of Draco at any rate." Then he motioned towards a cluster of gnarled oak trees huddled together in an unnatural helix.

"And Draco is also there," he said. "I've brought you to where I said I would. It's not a dungeon, and it's certainly not a torture chamber."

Hermione didn't even bother telling him that he had been hurting her for the past ten minutes. She didn't think the concept would sink in.

Following the direction of his hand, she looked towards the odd cluster of trees to find nothing but the dark void of the forest staring back at her: The border to the Underworld, she thought. Or as near as mortal ground can come. "There's no one there."

Draco walked a little closer, motioning for her to come closer. "Under the tree. In the ground."

Hermione looked for a secret passageway, but there was nothing like that in sight. There was, however, a large mound of loose and uneven topsoil that looked like it had been recently disturbed. The grass growing over it lay at haphazard angles like the divits golfers had tried to replace on the golf course she had visited with her father one time.

The terrible realization washed over her. This is a grave. Hermione shook her head. No...

"Excavo!" cried the Would-Be Draco, and the pliant soil before her parted to reveal a large chest, badly weather beaten and covered by worms.

Hermione didn't want to open the chest...she knew what awaited within the rusted box. Her boy…her beloved Draco. She remembered the last time she had seen his handsome face, gazing down on her with more love than all her friends and family could muster for her combined. He was down there, in that cold, metal thing; and his eyes were probably rotted out of their sockets. His smooth cheeks were pale and sunken with death. And his great heart had ceased beating forever.

And by God, she would have her vengeance. "DEFLAGRO!" She screamed, and the man before her collapsed to his knees, writhing in agony as a fire hotter than she could imagine kindled inside his internal organs.

It lasted all of five seconds; and then he was on his feet again. "I've had worse," was the only thing he said.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you now," Hermione demanded.

"Because I am Draco."

"Liar," she replied, and levelled her wand, pointing it straight at his face. If you won't tell me who you are, then avada..."

"I'm not your Draco!" he cried, holding his hand up as if he honestly expected that would ward off his impending doom. But it worked. He had her attention for the moment.

"I'm some other Hermione's Draco," he continued. "And my Hermione is dead. I loved her...you...you are like her in every way. I'm the one who's different. I made different choices that the Draco here, but I have always loved you. It's true what I said before; I would have done anything for you...only in my world I didn't. But I would have, if I had only known it was possible to find the counter curse. I promised her I would come back, and I did. So many times, I tried...that was the only thing I could do for her in the end was to keep my promise."

"What are you talking about? You're talking about something that's impossible."

"It's not impossible. There were two of us. I could talk about parallel universes or muggle physics, but none of that really matters. I don't understand it anyway. All I know is that I come from a place where things were different because of one choice that I made many many years ago. I became a Death Eater, while your Draco joined your cause."

"I don't believe you. Draco would never have served Voldemort."

"Oh, but he would have. He might have and could have... He came so close to it too. I know, because that is where everything changed, and he became him and I became me. And I…I killed you."

Hermione remembered that once Draco had mentioned something about being offered a place among the Death Eaters, but she had brushed it off. She hadn't thought it was possible.

"The Dark Lord found out I had a mistress, and he cursed me. I didn't believe he would; there I was one of his trusted followers, and I just didn't think…. "

Hermione stared at him, comprehension dawning at last. And yet, her wand remained upright. "You were both punished with the Orpheus Curse…"

This Draco blundered on. "Yes, he did curse me, and then I...I killed you." He pointed to the scar on his cheek, and Hermione saw that it was indeed the exact size and length of a scar made by a woman's thumbnail. "This is yours," he explained. "You just moved your hand to touch my cheek, and the curse worked its magic. You were in such agony."

"I can't believe anything you say," she cried. But staring at that hideous scar, she knew. "How can you be here? Why doesn't the curse work on me?"

"I don't know. I didn't try to understand the complexities of it. All I know is that I tried everything else. Time turners, mostly. I spent decades trying to change the past,. I'd go back and try to fix everything, but I killed you every time. You burnt whenever I touched you."

She remembere Draco recoiling from her touch that first night of his return. Don't touch me!

"Finally, I tracked down the myth of a dark witch, who lived in Yestonia. She told me that I couldn't avoid the curse so long as I followed the path of my own life. I would have to go somewhere else where I hadn't made the mistakes that I did, and a place where the curse had no meaning. I had her change everything so I could come here. Only when I arrived, I found him--your Draco that is--and I knew I had to get rid of him if this was to work. We fought; he wounded me, but I subdued him."

The two kinds of magic...Auror and Death Eater. Draco's inability to heal himself. To think that I healed it for him, when I should have finished the job.

"I wanted to look like him, so you would want me. I needed to get supplies, only I couldn't figure out how to heal my leg. It was a spell I didn't know. I put him in a trunk and cut his hair for the potion and left. When I came back, he was gone."

"Dead, you mean. He was DEAD."

Hermione moaned in horror, seeing just how different this man was from the Draco she had known. "You didn't even try to find a counter curse before you came here and killed the only person I ever wanted, did you?"

"I couldn't find a counter curse. It was too late. There was no counter-curse for me. My lover was already dead!"

"So you came here and killed mine!"

He threw himself at her feet, clutching her knees in the ancient sign of supplication. "My Hermione loved me. Please, you can as well. I know you can. I've seen it in your eyes. I'm not a bad man, Hermione. I've done bad things, but I can stop. You can help me stop. Please?"

Hermione didn't even take the trouble to kick him away. "How did you kill him?" He did not answer. Instead, Draco buried his head in the cloth of her pants, using her to hide from his shame. Hermione stepped on his wand hand, which had rested by her foot upon the ground. Slowly, sadistically, she applied weight and ground his fingers into the dirt. But he made no sound of pain.

Instead, he looked up at her. "Nothing you can do to me would compare with the pain I have had to endure, knowing that I killed you."

"I don't care about your past, and I don't care if it's true or not. If you had truly loved me; you would have let me be happy with the man I loved."

Suddenly, Draco swept her feet out from under her with his free arm and pinned her to the earth, with both of their wands pointed at each other's chins between their chests. Hermione found he was too heavy for her to free herself.

"Don't fight me," he begged, caressing her cheek with the hand she had hurt. "Isn't there some part of me that you could love? I was the same as him once upon a time."

"NEVER. I loved him for his goodness. For the way he always tried to do what was right, even though he doubted himself. And I loved him for the way he accomplished right in the end. But you…you are only a shadow and a spectre of a man who might have been truly great."

"Love me for that, then!" he commanded her, his caress turning rough as he forced her to look upon his ruined face. "Give me some hope."

Hermione stared into his eyes, gathered the saliva in her mouth and spat into them. At first, he was stunned. Then the rage of her rejection set in. He reached down between them and ripped at something. Hermione fought him, unable to feel what he was doing. She wondered if he would rape her, and yet she did not feel his hands reach under her clothing.

"I can be good!" he screamed at her. "I'll show you! You…you'll never be happy with Potter. I can be good. Love me, Hermione. Just say it once! Once, and then I'll go, but you'll never be happy with Potter…"

With all his fumbling between their bodies, Hermione managed to shove him off of her and get to her feet.

Draco's arms went around her legs, pulling her to the earth again. He was over her in a flash, screaming, "Say it! SAY IT!"

"I hate you!" she answered. "You killed him." She slapped at his face, scratching and hitting him like a lion caught in a trap. Draco grabbed at one of her hands, and Hermione felt something hard being placed in hers. She didn't care what it was; she was too busy fighting to free herself.

She had not forgotten her wand, but she didn't have the proper concentration to try a curse.

His hand was on her throat, but it wasn't squeezing. It was a surprisingly gentle touch for a murderer.

This is the end, she thought.

Draco leaned down to kiss her. A soft, gentle kiss like the one he had given her two years ago in the barracks before he had left on the mission.

"I can do what is right too," he whispered.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Thanks to:

DracoDraconis, HollyMahogany, Sunflower18 for your numerous reviews. Reviews always encourage me to write faster.

Everybody's Shadow I hope this chapter answers your questions. :)

kriCet x0 I always wanted to finish this ridiculous thing, and now I'm finally very very very close. Thank God!

Everyone else! Because I'm too lazy to thank everybody.