It was only one hour ago
It was all so different then
There's nothing yet has really sunk in
Looks like it always did
This flesh and bone
It's just the way that you would tied in
Now there's no-one home
I grieve for you

Hermione stood defiantly on the top of the tower, the trapdoor behind her shut against the rain and the wind. Ahead of her, illuminated by the low full moon was the form of the man she had come to admire, almost despite her better impulses. He, too, was defiant as he stood by the low wall that edged the wall. The stone barely reached to his knees, a negligible obstacle to his intentions.

He was beautiful. Sopping wet because of the lashing rain that slapped Hermione's hair to her head, his shirt stuck to his muscled torso, and his wet and dripping hair, catching the moonlight at the top though shadowed black at the back, flew around his face, tossed by the irritable wind.

She watched as he raised one foot to the low wall, shifting his weight onto it.

"Wait!" She called out. He jerked back from the wall and spun to face her.

"Fucking hell, mudblood! What do you think you're doing here?" He demanded, his face in shadow.

"I'm here to talk to you."

"Gonna try and talk me out of this?" he said with a harsh laugh. "You'll be lucky." He turned back to wall, and Hermione hurried forward and grabbed his arm, yanking him backwards as hard as she could.

"I don't want to talk you out of it." She yelled, raising her voice over the howling wind and rain. "It's your life. I just want to know why!"

"Why what? Why I'm about to chuck myself off the tower?" He asked, advancing on her. She stepped back nervously, thanking her lucky stars that she had closed the trapdoor behind her as she heard the hollow thud of the trapdoor beneath her heel.

"Yeah, that. And what it was you worked out."

"What the bleeding hell are you talking about?"

"You worked it out, Draco. I know you did."

"What is it, oh hallowed-one? What is it that I know that the cute little mudblood doesn't?"

"You know the truth, don't you? The truth about everything?"

"The truth about everything, little girl…" he looked down at her, rain dripping off his nose. "There is no truth. Just convoluted lies."

"There is truth!" Hermione shot back. "There is!"

"You're deluding yourself." He said harshly.

"You are more!" Hermione stood her ground. He grabbed her shoulders and held her firmly before crushing her lips with his. When he drew back, Hermione was staring at him, wide-eyed.

"First kiss?" He asked. She shook her head. "Shoulda known there was more than bookworm mudblood than it looked like. Who was it, Potter?" She ignored him.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Nothing you'd recognise." Draco replied, turning away. Hermione scrambled to get in front of him, and he looked down at her. "It's a circular tower. And you can't be in front of me the entire time." Hermione raised herself onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips gently to his, before letting herself fall back onto her heels.

"See, that's the truth." She said with a smile.

"You didn't need me to show you then, did you?" Draco kissed her forehead briefly, stepped away from her, and was gone.

Hermione rushed to the edge of the wall and looked over in time to see a flash of white before the moonlight was obscured by the clouds. She touched her bruised lips gently, before smiling.

"Didn't work it out on my own though." She commented, sitting down on the tower, and drawing her knees to her chest.

She was surprised by how she didn't feel sad. Just a little…smiley.

She stayed on the tower all night. And when the teachers finally found her, she didn't say a word.

&

So tell me if you like it, please. I know I've been away for absolutely ages, but I've been writing in my absence, so I'll do my best to update as soon as I can. Next time will probably been Christmas, but that's in only a month (yay!) so you won't, hopefully, have too long to wait. I will also do my utmost to keep writing the unfinished stories I already have up, like Leoli and my many Harry Potter fics, which I started and never finished. Until then, I hope this will tide you over, so enjoy! Istalindar.