He had healed her head wound, and her aching ribs, and was bending low over her stomach, her pants unlaced, exposing her lower abdomen and the ugly bruising here, caused by Goyle, Sr.'s punches- passing his wand back and forth and watching them slowly fade, when she next spoke.

"Draco?"

Her voice was barely audible, but it cut through his concentration like a knife, bringing his head up with a jerk.

"Yeah?"

"I feel… strange…"

In the next instant he was bending close over her face, examining her color, her breathing, her eyes. "Strange how?" he asked tersely.

"I feel…" her voice was the barest of whispers now- "floaty… and… everything is… spinning… Draco, make it stop spinning… please, I… I can't-"

He grasped her head between both his hands and lowered his own until their noses were nearly touching. Her eyes- there was something wrong with her eyes. The pupils were hugely dilated, her eyes larger and darker in her pale face than he had ever seen them; they reminded him of wells of black ink.

"Ugh… Draco…" she said, her voice now sounding choked; "I think I'm… gonna be…" abruptly, she wrenched away from him and rolled onto her side, and was suddenly and violently ill, her entire body heaving convulsively as it mounted a desperate, yet futile, attempt to rid itself of something that couldn't possibly be expelled through vomit; the vestiges of snake venom that Draco had missed.

He had missed very little, which was why it had taken this long for it to manifest. But though there was only a minute amount of poison left in her body, a minute amount was all that was required… it had been delayed, but was now beginning, in earnest, the work of killing her.

"Oh no," Draco whispered, pulling her up into a kneeling position, supporting her, holding back her unruly hair. "No, sweetheart, not now… Hermione, no. Oh God, no."

When she reached the point where she could heave no more, she collapsed backward against him, lying slumped against his chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, gathering her closer still- she was shaking, he realized- and rested his chin on top of her head.

This was torture. He felt as though his heart were being twisted around and around inside his body. He had done everything he could with the limited resources available, and he dared not take her to St. Mungo's, because of the continued rumors of intense fighting there; he wasn't going to carry her into a potential death trap in an attempt to save her life.

That left him with little to do but hold her as her tenuous grip on life slipped slowly yet inexorably away.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione," he murmured into her hair.

"Me too…" she whispered, "m'sorry, Draco… I should have said yes to you that day… should have… taken you up on as much of yourself as you were free to offer… it would have been better than all this… wasted time."

"No," Draco said decisively, "absolutely not. Don't you ever say that, do you hear me? Don't even think it. You did the right thing. I acted abominably that day. I should have been flogged for making you a proposition like that. I was stupid and selfish and thought I could have it both ways; duty and love. Have my… what is it that Muggles say? Have my… pie, and…"

"Have your cake and eat it too," Hermione said, with a hint of a smile in her voice, despite everything.

In response, Draco kissed the top of her head and tightened his arms still further about her. "I should have asked you to marry me. To hell with duty. What I wouldn't give for a time turner to make things right."

00000

Hermione turned her head in order to nestle her face against his chest. How she had wanted this… never even admitting to herself in all the time since that awful last day at school that she did, in fact, want him back- that would be weakness, and she was not weak. But regardless of whether she had consciously admitted it or not, she now conceded to herself, didn't make it any less true. She had yearned for his arms around her again.

And now that she had him back, she was just lying here waiting to die, and goddamn it, it wasn't fair, she wasn't ready, it wasn't fair!

She could feel her body giving up the fight against the poison- could feel the strangeness getting stronger all the time- not pain, exactly, not anymore; she'd moved beyond mere pain. Just… a strong sense that something was deeply and fatally not right.

"I wish I could have married you," she murmured, as the stars above her seemed to wink out one by one and blackness began to enfold her. "Not a day has gone by that I haven't looked at that ring and wished… that it had been an engagement ring… God, I wished so often and so hard… it's so beautiful… I've ached to wear it…" she trailed off.

"You ached to wear it," Draco echoed, his voice bitter, "but you never did, did you? Goddamn your stubborn pride, Hermione-" and now he sounded as if he were choking on tears- "if you had only worn it today, just today… it could have protected you, that's what it was made for… and it's all my bloody fault you never put it on, and… aw, damn it to hell!"

"I can't see the sky anymore," she whispered, causing his arms to tighten convulsively about her. Then- "Draco, help me. I want… I… want…"

"What do you want, sweetheart?" he practically sobbed.

"I wanna wear it… at last… help me…put it on… I can't…move my arms so good… can't get it… out…"

Draco's body jerked so suddenly and so hard it was as if an electric shock had gone through him. "Get it out of where?" he asked in a suddenly tight voice. "Are you saying you have it here? Hermione? HERMIONE!"

Her eyes had fallen closed and she was unresponsive. "Hermione! Oh, fuck! FUCK!"

He laid her out flat on the ground and bent over her, checking for breathing, pulse. Both were still present, though faint. Horribly, terrifyingly faint.

"You're not gonna do this to me, Hermione, you're not gonna say something like that and then just slip away, I'm not gonna let you, goddamn it, I won't LET you!" He jabbed the tip of his wand into her chest hard enough to leave a bruise. "Ennervate!"

She gasped as the force of the spell jolted through her body, and her eyes flew open- but they were clouded. Draco's sudden sense that she no longer seemed to understand where she was or what was going on strengthened when she spoke. A small frown creasing her brow, her voice now laced with irritation, she whispered, "Draco, quit playing, I'm tired… I've hardly slept… exams…up studying… all night long…"

"Hermione!" Taking her by the shoulders, he gave her a quick, hard shake. "Come back to me, love, come on… I know you don't want to, I wouldn't either, but I need you in the here and now, this is too- (shake)- bloody- (shake)- important!"

He watched comprehension click in her eyes as they finally- thank God- widened and cleared. She drew in a shuddering breath.

"Dra-mmmph…"

She was cut off as he kissed her suddenly and hard on the lips, overwhelmed by relief.

He pulled away a moment later, but kept his face just barely an inch above hers, his hands on either side of her head, holding it steady, his fingers twined in her hair, his left hand slick with the blood from her right temple- he had healed it, true, but the blood remained. "Hermione," he said urgently, "you were talking about the ring a moment ago. Do you have it with you? Where is it?"

"Neck…" she murmured, her eyes beginning inexorably to slip shut once more. "chain… 'round my neck… wore it today… next t'my… heart…"

Without further ado, Draco plunged his hand down her shirt, searching between the swell of her breasts. When he pulled it out a moment later, it was fisted around something small and golden that glimmered in the gloom.

"Oh, thank God," he whispered fervently, giving the fine gold chain a sharp tug, breaking it and freeing the ring. "Don't let it be too late, please don't let it be too late!"

He lifted her left hand, saw the engagement ring on her fourth finger, snarled, yanked it off, tossed it away, and jammed the opal ring into its place, his fear of losing her making him rough. Then he raised her hand to his mouth, holding it in both of his own, and kissed it, his lips moving against her cold fingers as he whispered, "come on, please work, please…"

Nothing happened for several long seconds.

Then, abruptly, her whole body jerked stiff, her eyes flying wide, her fingers clamping down on his with an iron grip.

"Draco!" she cried out, "it hurts! Oh God, it burns!"

"S'alright, love- that means it's doing what it was meant to do. Just hold on."

"Unnngh… no… owww… take it off!"

"Never," he whispered, wrapping his arms around her and half-lifting her, crushing her to his chest in a fierce embrace. "Never, Hermione."

"Nnngh… Draco… my arm!"

Draco looked down at her left arm, sucking in a sharp breath at what he saw. The ring on her hand was glowing- a deep, pulsing, golden glow- and so too was her forearm, where the snakebites were, the golden light leaking out from beneath the bandages he had wrapped around the wounds.

"Please," and her voice was no more than a whisper now, "Draco, it hurts so much."

"Shhh," he soothed. "That just means that it's working. You're strong enough to get through this, I know you are. Just hold on."

She made a muffled sound against him that seemed half-groan, half-sob… and then bit down on his shoulder, hard, causing him to have to stifle a cry of his own. He made no attempt to pull away, however, just ground out through clenched teeth, "do what you have to, Granger, but hold on. Don't you leave me. Don't you dare."

They made a strange couple, there on the snow-dusted ground of the corpse-strewn battlefield, nothing moving around them- all those able to continue the fight for either side had moved on, it seemed, to the new "hot spots" of St. Mungo's and Diagon Alley. The boy, shirtless, in a puddle of ripped Death Eater robes, his hood long since tossed aside, his hair the color of the stars that shone above him- the girl in the plain black combat fatigues of the Order, her sole badge of affiliation the scarlet and gold band high on her right arm, which, upon closer inspection, bore the insignia of a phoenix. Neither of them was much more than a child. When they had walked onto the killing ground hours earlier, it had been as enemies. Now the girl was clinging to life by a thread.

And the boy's heart was breaking.

Because it was becoming apparent that the aid of the ring was too little, too late. Her fight for life was, it seemed, a losing battle.

Draco noticed that the ring's glow was fading at just about the same time that Hermione, who had been tense and trembling from the pain, started to relax in his arms, her head lolling backward, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, and, Draco noticed, in mounting panic, slightly blue. His shoulder, which had been in searing agony as she bit down on it, was now throbbing dully. He slipped a hand behind her head and eased her back down to the ground.

"Hermione," he muttered urgently, moving his other hand to cup her cheek, "don't do this, goddamn it. Wake up. Granger, wake up!"

Her eyes blinked open slowly, and only halfway. They were heavy-lidded, sleepy and out of focus. She swallowed, wetted her lips with her tongue. "Draco," she said, her voice hoarse, cracked, "I'm so tired. But I'm not ready… I don't wanna die."

"You're not gonna die," he half sobbed. "There's one more thing we can try. It was a last-resort enchantment I had put on the ring. It's old magic, very old, and hasn't been used successfully in at least five centuries… hasn't been documented, at least. It's risky. But it's a chance, Hermione, our last chance, so I'm willing to take that risk. But in order for it to work, we both have to participate. The words of the spell- I'll need you to repeat them after me. Can you do it? Hermione?" He shook her again. "Can you do it?!?"

"I'll try."

"All right… all right. Hang on." Lifting her left hand once more, he gently pulled the opal ring off, wincing as he noticed that the skin on her finger had been rubbed raw by the violence with which he'd shoved it on a moment ago. But that was the least of her injuries at the moment…

Her dark eyes watched him, puzzled, blinking often in an attempt to keep focused, as he next removed his wedding ring from his own fourth finger. Brow furrowed in concentration, he fit the two rings together, lips moving as he began to recite the words of an ancient and complex spell in a barely audible murmur, praying that this last-ditch enchantment would actually work.

If it did not, it would most likely kill him.

Not that he would mind that terribly much, because if it did not work, then Hermione would die as well… and he would have nothing to live for anyway, then. With both Hermione and Pansy dead, he would have neither love nor even duty to tie him to this world. No, he would either live with Hermione… or die with her.

Something was happening.

"Draco," Hermione whispered, "what's going on?"

The two rings had clicked together, and were beginning to glow with the same golden light that Hermione's ring alone had recently dispensed into her bloodstream, in an effort to fight off the deadly snake venom. As the light intensified, the two rings, now merged into one, actually began to expand, to grow larger. Draco let go, and this new single ring hung in the air in front of him, thrumming with magical energy, and still, slowly, enlarging. A small, grim smile settled on his face. The initial phase of the enchantment, at least, was going exactly as it should.

"My wedding band," he explained quietly, as the magic continued to run its course, "I had it crafted as a mate to your ring, not to Pansy's, because in my heart, you were always my wife. The first part of the spell is nearly over now. It's the second part that will require you to participate. Are you with me, Hermione?"

"M'with you."

"Right." Draco took a deep breath. "Here goes."

His hand shaking slightly, he reached out and plucked the shining object from the air. It had stopped expanding and was now a perfectly fused, single large gold ring, shot through with shimmering and ever-changing bands of opalescent color- predominantly crimson and green. It was surrounded by a bright aura of magical power and when Draco's fingers made contact with it, it seemed to actually buzz beneath them.

Holding the ring carefully, he took Hermione's right hand with his left, gently spread her fingers, and then pressed his hand flat against hers, palm to palm, carefully aligning each of their fingers, pressing them tightly together. Right hand to left, their thumbs lined up; their index, middle, ring and pinky fingers, mirroring one another. Then, with his right hand, he slipped the ring slowly down over their joined fourth fingers. It had expanded, as it was meant to do, to the perfect size; just large enough to fit around their two fingers when pressed together, binding them.

There was a blaze of light, and then they were both completely encompassed in the ring's golden aura.

"Now," Draco whispered, lowering his head until his silver-white fringe brushed Hermione's forehead, the tips of the fine, near-colorless hairs turning suddenly scarlet as they met the blood-soaked hair at her temple, "this is when you must repeat after me. All right? Hermione? All right?"

She swallowed thickly, then blinked hard once, twice- she was clearly struggling, even in the midst of the sudden cocoon of brilliant, pulsing light, to stay conscious, aware. "Right," she whispered slowly.

"Once we start, we can't stop til we're done. Do you understand that?"

"Un'stnd."

Draco's heart lurched in his chest. He was becoming increasingly, terrifyingly sure that she wasn't going to make it through this.

Well he'd live with her or die with her. Right?

Right.

Taking two more deep, steadying breaths, he lowered his head just a fraction more, tilting it slightly to the side to avoid bumping noses, until their lips just barely touched. They would stay like this, speaking the words of the spell directly into one another's mouths, their lips brushing as they spoke, until the enchantment was complete… or until Hermione failed to repeat after him, and things would go terribly wrong. Either way, it was time to begin.

He couldn't resist giving her one more tender, chaste kiss, then he spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper.

The words were stunningly simple.

"One breath," he said, as their breath intermingled there on the snowy, corpse-strewn ground. "Say it, Hermione, one breath."

"One breath," she whispered in reply.

"One heart," Draco murmured.

"One… heart…" Hermione was fading fast.

Draco took his free hand and cupped her face.

"One love."

"One… one…"

"One love. Hermione, say it."

"One love," she breathed.

"One life," Draco pressed.

Hermione's eyes fluttered; her body jerked weakly beneath him, her breath hitched.

She was leaving him.

"Hermione! One life!" He tapped the side of her face- softly at first, then almost hard enough to be a slap. "Say it!"

"One… ngh!" (she convulsed again)… "l-life…"

"Okay. This is it. One blood. Hermione, one blood."

"One… one b…b…"

"Hermione." He kissed her lips again. "I love you. Don't leave me. Please don't. Say it. One blood. Say it, please."

"One… one… Aagh!" Her body arched up off the cold, hard ground, pressing into him as leaned close over her. Her eyes, which had been growing steadily heavier throughout the incantation, flew wide. The light in them, the life- was nearly gone.

"One blood!" Draco shouted. "Hermione damn you, don't do this! One blood, say it! Say it, say it SAY-"

"ONE BLOOD!" she cried suddenly, the words sounding as if they'd been wrenched from her throat. It was her last rally. She was through.

But it was enough. The incantation was complete.

She collapsed back to the ground, all the tension leaving her body in an instant, and at the same time there was an explosion of energy around them. The rings reverted to their original forms, releasing their hands, and Draco, who'd been leaning over Hermione all this time, practically on top of her, was flung to the side, where he landed next to her on his back, spread-eagled on the ground.

Pain shot through every inch of his body; he gritted his teeth against it, willing himself not to cry out. With the completion of the life binding spell, he had given Hermione half of his life force, and taken on half of her pain. Pain which had been so severe that her mind had long since begun to react by moving beyond it, to a place where it could no longer touch her… but to Draco it was fresh, he'd had no opportunity to erect any such defenses against it; he was caught in a tide of pain that felt like nothing he'd ever experienced before.

Merlin, this is only HALF of what she was feeling? he thought, as he lay gasping up at the star-studded sky. His mind flew back to that night a year ago when he'd found her in the corridor outside the potions classroom. Hadn't one of the very first things he'd ever said to her following that life-changing event concerned her strength in the face of pain? Yeah… the morning after, when he'd been half-delirious already, sick from spending the night on the cold stone floor in a draft- It's really kind of too bad you are a mudblood. Though I'll never tell you as much again, you are smart, and you proved last night that you're tough as well. I never would have guessed how badly hurt you were from the way you were acting. You would have been an asset to our side, Granger.

God, what a fool he'd been. He had started to love her right then, he saw in retrospect, right then when he'd seen first-hand just how strong and brave she could be. That was why he'd carried her through the classroom door instead of simply levitating her; why he'd placed her in the least drafty corner of the room, dooming himself to get sick. Yet even after all that, he'd remained so sure, so bloody sure that he was honor-bound to choose duty over love, and look where it had gotten him- look where it had gotten her.

He had chosen poorly.

And now everything she was going through was his fault.

Well, he'd spend the rest of his life making it up to her- assuming that either he, or she, had a rest of a life to spend.

He rolled onto his side and then pushed himself up onto his knees, unable to suppress a low groan as he did so. He crawled the short distance to where Hermione lay, horribly, terrifyingly still.

"Please be breathing," he whispered, "please be breathing, please, Granger, please…"

Bending close over her, he pushed dark, blood encrusted curls out of her face and dipped his head, turning his face to the side as he did, so that his cheek hovered bare millimeters from her lips. He waited for a moment like that, not daring to breathe himself, until he registered the regular, if tiny, puffs of warm air hitting his skin.

She was breathing- though barely.

"Thank God," he choked out, as relief surged through him, and it was all he could do to keep himself from collapsing on top of her. He just wanted to curl into her warmth and sleep…

But no. That was hypothermia beckoning him- he was still shirtless in the snow. If he slept now he would never wake, and if he died, so would she. His brave little Gryffindor was completely helpless now; he was her only chance for salvation. He had to stay focused, damn it.

It was difficult, though- at least, until he heard the voices. The voices, still far off but drawing nearer, had the effect of a bucket of ice water thrown over him; they brought things back into sharp focus real fast- because voices- anyone's voices- were bad, bad news right now.

If it was Death Eaters, they would kill Hermione- which would be the same as killing him. If it was Order members, they would either kill or imprison him- the former would equal killing Hermione; the latter would equal killing them both. Because if they lived through this night, both of their lives would be irrevocably altered by the binding spell he had just performed. They now shared a single life force; if one of them should die, the other would follow within an hour. If they were to be separated by more than about two hundred meters, they would both be dead within an hour. This was how their lives were to be now. This was permanent.

So voices were not a good thing, no matter whose they were.

His head whipped toward the sound, and he saw a group of shadowy figures, moving across the desolate battlefield, moving in his direction. He watched as one of them hunched down, apparently over a person lying prone on the ground. In the next instant, there was a flash of green light, followed by rough guffaws of laughter. That answered the question of who they were, then; definitely Death Eaters, who were searching through the bodies on the ground, using the killing curse on wounded Order members, and probably looting them for good measure.

He had to get Hermione out of here. NOW.

"Wands," he muttered, "shit, where are our wands?"

He'd lost track of both of them; now, when a quick glance around revealed nothing of their whereabouts, he extended a hand and said "Accio wand." Both his wand and Hermione's responded immediately- it was another effect of the bonding curse. Both wands would respond equally to each of them now.

"All right. Portkey, need portkey…" but where to go? He couldn't think of anyplace safe, not after what he'd heard about St. Mungo's and Diagon Alley. He didn't trust Hogwarts either right now; it had been the Death Eaters' main objective, and while he didn't know whether it had been breached or not, he wasn't willing to take that chance. Besides, even if it remained an Order stronghold, there was still the problem of his almost certain arrest- and subsequent separation from Hermione- should the Order of the Phoenix get a hold of him. Safety, where could he find safety? He was having a hard time thinking clearly; he was freezing, and still in intense pain. As his mind wrestled with the fog that wanted to slow his thought process, cloud his judgment- cost him and Hermione their lives, his hands were searching the ground around him, completely independent of conscious thought, for an object suitable for transformation into a portkey.

His right hand closed over just such an object- Hermione's diamond engagement ring. He scooped it up, along with a handful of filthy gray snow and gravelly dirt, from where it had been lying on the ground, thankful for its presence for the very first time. He no longer needed to resent it, after all, now that it was no longer on her finger- and it would suit his purposes perfectly. But where to go?

His revelation came at almost the exact instant he heard his name called. THE COTTAGE! he thought, as though a light had been switched on in his head- of course. With all the wards and protective spells he'd had put on it, it was the safest place on earth for Hermione- for both of them. And once there, he could send Pinky for help from the one person he trusted to actually listen to him before acting.

But right on the heels of this thought, he heard it- the approaching voices were talking amongst themselves, and now they were close enough that he could make out what they were saying.

"-over there, yeah, that hair- see? Looks like Malfoy!"

"Malfoy? I thought fer sure he was dead. Malfoy! Hey, Malfoy, s'at you?"

"Aw, fuck me," Draco muttered, and began hurriedly reciting the spell that would transform the diamond ring into a portkey to the cottage in Hogsmeade.

The Death Eaters- his former comrades- were nearly upon them by the time Draco finished the incantation. He yanked Hermione's unresisting body into his arms, slipped the ring back onto her hand- but her right hand, this time- and said "activate!" just as Blaise Zabini, Marcus Flint, and several others- he didn't catch their faces, as he and Hermione were already being whirled away- came to a skidding halt in front of-

Well, in front of where he had been a moment ago, for he was no longer there now.