Dark.

Warm and still and utterly silent, she drifted, feeling above her the twisted and ruined workings of tortured lungs and the crushed pulp of her heart, the taste of blood thick in her mouth, dark flecks of it on her dry lips. There was pain, and she ducked below it, hiding...

There was also a dim sort of almost-knowledge, something terribly important that kept her from hiding completely in the darkness, a constant prickling that drove her up into the light and into the pain. It broke over her in a red wash, a wave that was as insistent and unstoppable as the tide. Thinking was impossible when the wave crested, and she would have moaned if she could have, would have twisted if her body obeyed. Would have reached for it, whatever it was that she wanted so desperately, if her hands would move.

It was in one of these moments of almost-consciousness that she saw light, heard voices that she recognized.

"Ah...Merlin, Hermione, no..."

Her hands twitched, and a crimson bolt shot through her, sending her below the tide. Somewhere above, they pried her away, and the motion brought a weak mewl of protest from her lips as it jarred her.

Her eyes opened, focusing dizzily on a thatch of red and blue eyes, eyes that brimmed with tears.

"Ron," she said weakly, and his tears overflowed.

That wasn't right; her hand trembled as she reached for him, trying to tell him that he shouldn't be crying.

Then she gasped again as Harry rolled her grimly onto her back, feeling her lungs bubble with the breath, the sense of drowning thick in her mind.

"They're alive..." someone behind Harry said, voice weak with relief.

"Draco?" she whispered, fighting off the darkness long enough to see Harry nod. From somewhere near her, there was a weak screech, a sound entirely unlike any the little dragon on her back had ever made.

As gently as he knew how, Harry lifted her, arms under her knees and shoulders, but it was not gentle enough. Something shifted, and pain exploded through her, pain unlike anything she'd ever felt before, even when Dumbledore had poured his power into the little dragon...dragon...

Draco...

Darkness was abrupt, and this time, absolute.

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The Order had taken heavy losses in their final battle, and nowhere was it more obvious than under the mercilessly bright lights of the waiting room in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Of the forty that had gone to fight, perhaps twenty-five had returned relatively unscathed; of those injured, only four had managed to get back. It was likely that they would never know what had become of the others. Susan Bones was one that was missing; Anthony Goldstein another. Harry couldn't bear to think of the list of names.

The loss of Remus Lupin burned in Harry like a brand; the last of his father's old friends, the last of the Marauders. Whether he died a hero or not, dead was dead, and Harry swiped at his red eyes irritably.

Malfoy and Hermione–even with the shock of Draco's appearance, even with Hermione's word, along with Moody's and Kingsley's, it was hard to believe that a Malfoy had turned the tide. Neither Draco or Hermione had regained consciousness, and Healers hovered in their room anxiously, speaking in low tones that grated on Harry's nerves unendurably.

Slightly down the hall, Professor Dumbledore paced, brow furrowed deeply in thought, the lines in his face so deep as to have been chiseled there.

As ever, it was to Dumbledore he wished to speak; it was a ritual after his battles, that Dumbledore would clarify everything, somehow make the losses easier to bear, make Harry understand.

As if he heard Harry's thoughts, Dumbledore's snowy head came up, and he shook his head as Harry moved to approach.

"Not now, Harry," he said softly.

The snack cart cantered up the hallway again, flinging plastic forks every which way, and Harry watched it moodily as the Healers reemerged from Hermione and Draco's room, shaking their heads at the watchful members of the Order.

The wait was interminable. Days passed, waking and sleeping, Molly Weasley shooing them off to eat and shower periodically as they hoped against hope that Hermione and Malfoy would survive–the second part of that hope something Harry occasionally stumbled over mentally. There had been so many days in Hogwarts that he looked into Malfoy's cold grey eyes and anticipated seeing them through the mask of a Death Eater.

Moody, Morag MacDougal, Emmeline Vance, and George Weasley were the only surviving wounded, and Fred sat alone in the waiting room, having thrown off his mother's hands and growling whenever someone attempted to speak to him. Nursing a tomato-shaped nose and a spectacular black eye, the helplessness in Fred's face was the worst of it; Harry looked away, unable to bear the sight of him. What would become of Fred if George died...

Spying Colin Creevey wending his way down the hallway, another half-dozen reporters and photographers in tow, Harry snarled wordlessly and took out his wand. This was the third time in as many days that he had had to deal with the press, and by Merlin, he didn't care if he got clapped in irons and sent to Azkaban, he was going to...

Ginny Weasley interceded, long enough for Healers to hear the commotion and order the Daily Prophet staff from the building. With them went his burst of angry energy, and he sat with his head in his hands, forcing a wan smile as Mrs. Weasley pressed a cup into his hands. The fact that it was tea and that it was lukewarm at best never registered as he sipped at it absently.

There was a great deal of whispering about the Marks; the tiny dragon on Hermione's back, the unnamed Mark on Draco's, the Binding of Fates, what that would mean, and it had the Healers flummoxed. By rights, Draco should be dead, they murmured, and how Hermione had given him her Mark...

It was a question for another time, because Harry didn't give a good goddamn what it meant, so long as they lived. The weight of the deaths throughout the war was something that pressed him until it was difficult to breathe. No more was a continuous murmur in the back of his head.

Resolutely, he turned his mind away from that, muted the clamour that made it difficult to breathe when he thought about George, Hermione, and even Malfoy. Mechanically, he ate whatever it was Ron shoved at him, his weariness a lead weight.

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Sunlight streamed through the windows and Hermione Granger woke to a drugged haze, vaguely cognizant of the swirl of bottle-green robes, the excited murmur around her as she was poked and prodded, weakly protesting. A cup was forced to her lips and she drank, almost spitting the bitter liquid out. By the taste alone, she remembered having this particular potion before, a long time ago...

"Draco?" she asked softly, almost inaudibly.

"He's alive, dear," a young witch said cheerfully. "He'll wake up soon."

She almost managed to kick the wizard behind her without Hermione noticing, the man's mouth snapping shut.

"Where is he?"

The witch drew the curtain beside Hermione's bed back, and she could see the form of a tall man from the chest down, the quiet rasps of his breathing ringing through the still room.

"Gave us quite a turn, you did," said the witch, handing Hermione a cup of potion that bubbled ominously. "We haven't had to treat anyone with the Confatalis Mark in four centuries."

"The Mark?" Hermione half-reached to her back, feeling the little dragon stir there, which somehow was wrong. She thought...

Whatever she thought, it trailed off into curious blankness, and the witch shooed the rest of the Healers from the room.

"There are quite a lot of people that want to see you, Miss Granger, if you think you're up to it."

Hermione nodded, falling back against the pillows. Tired as she was, she did want to know the outcome of the battle...Voldemort must be dead, she realized with a start. Lord Voldemort was dead.

Her weary mind couldn't quite wrap around that thought, but tears trickled down her cheeks nonetheless. So many dead, so many lost, and she woke up to find it was over, after a war that had spanned decades, from the Dark Lord's first rise to now.

Over her sniffling, she heard the Healer in the doorway, arms stretched to prevent entrance.

"She needs quiet," the young witch said firmly. "You will not excite her or stress her, or I'll kick out the lot of you. Is that understood?"

Murmurs of assent, and they deluged her, red-eyed Harry and Ron, grasping her hands wordlessly as she smiled through her tears.

"Voldemort?" She managed, needing to hear the words all the same.

"Dead," Harry replied, sinking into a chair beside her.

"Thought we'd lost you, Hermione," Ron added in a watery sort of voice. "How d'you feel?"

"Wonderful," she replied, with a touch of her old asperity and smiling nonetheless. "How do you feel, Ron?"

He grinned, and she squeezed his hand. Mrs. Weasley enveloped her in a careful hug, Tonks winked, and it was so wonderful to see them all...

Too, she noted the gaps between them, the faces she might have expected to see and did not, and closed her eyes. There weren't many tears left in her, only a weary acceptance.

"How long have I been here?" she asked.

"Five days, Miss Layabout," Ginny said briskly and hugged her as well, stepping back and squeezing her husband's hand. "You scared the life out of us, Hermione."

"Do my best," she replied, dwelling still on the quietly sleeping shape on the other side of the curtain. With a sigh, she wrenched her mind back to those gathered around her. "Tell me everything."

Molly Weasley began, in a rapid, high-pitched voice as she glanced at the grim-faced Fred, who slammed out of the room when she spoke of his twin.

"George..." she faltered, and Arthur pulled her face into his shoulder.

Then Tonks, then Daedelus Diggle, his normally excitable voice flat as he spoke of his dead comrades, and Harry tonelessly describing most of his fight with Voldemort, Charlie and Ron hauling him out of the collapsing, burning house in Little Hangleton, taking Fleur with them...

It was too much, too fast, and Hermione closed her eyes, wishing it all away for now.

Harry and Ron kissed her cheek wordlessly as they left, Mr. Weasley steering his quietly sobbing wife from the room, and Hermione felt eyes on her yet in the silence, opening her own to see Dumbledore sitting patiently as ever beside her, hands crossed neatly over the walking stick he was using more and more of late.

"We won," she said weakly.

"In a manner of speaking, Miss Granger," he replied soberly. "We never would have managed it without your Mr. Malfoy."

"Will he be all right?"

"He bears your Mark." Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled for the first time in a long time. "As you grow stronger, Miss Granger, so will he."

"My Mark?"

She felt it in him, felt a piece of herself labouring to breathe as he laboured, felt occasional stabs of pain that were not her own. Vaguely, she even remembered scrubbing tears away as she gave it to him.

"How–?"

"You may not remember," Dumbledore said gently. "He bears your Mark, Hermione, and his life is bound to yours, even as yours is bound to his."

"It takes two days to prepare for the Confatalis Mark," she whispered. "How is it possible? I didn't have time..."

"Didn't have time, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore smiled oddly and stood, a slow motion of creaking joints, and patted his beard into place. "Can you stand? There is something you should see."

"Try..." she said through gritted teeth, sitting up and waiting for the room to cease revolving. Dumbledore helped her solicitously, offering her his walking stick with such a grave face that she laughed breathlessly, wincing. "Please, Professor, don't make me laugh," she said weakly, hitching herself across the scant few feet between her bed and Draco's.

"There..."

With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore turned Draco onto his side, exposing a back as broad and pearlescent as she remembered.

There, between Draco's shoulder blades, a tiny red and gold bird stared at her with fierce bright eyes, squawking and burying his head beneath his wing. A bird not entirely unlike the one on the small of her back, or the one that adorned Harry and Ron's shoulders, or Ginny Weasley's ankle. A little phoenix that was more alive than any she had ever seen, aside from Fawkes himself.

Hermione suddenly felt she would very much like to sit down, and did, staring wordlessly at Dumbledore as he smiled.

"Love is the lever that moves the world, Miss Granger," he said quietly, and left her sitting in her hospital robes beside Draco, his words echoing oddly in the still room. She had heard them before, but didn't remember where, wouldn't remember, she added, puzzling out in her mind.

Her hand flew to her mouth.

Didn't have time, Miss Granger?

But she had, hadn't she?

Wide dark eyes returned to Draco, still comfortably on his side, the little phoenix winking coyly at her from under his wing. Pillowed beneath the bird she could read the words, elegantly scripted in handwriting that looked very like her own. Abs favilla.

From the ashes.

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Author's Note:

I'll try to save the lengthiest notes/questions for the upcoming epilogue.

I figured this was a good place, however, to address the perfectly reasonable question one of my reviewers asked me in regards to Hermione's mark. What with the paradoxes in time-travel, I could have gone either way; left it to be redone or given it back to her. The way I saw it, once Hermione saved Draco, once she changed time so that he didn't die, then she would never have lost his Mark. As soon as Hermione-of-the-Present went back in time, she completed the loop. If Draco had died despite Hermione giving him the mark, then the point would have been moot. But since he lived, so did the little dragon.

Hopefully that didn't confuse you worse. Time travel. Bleeech.