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Draco looked at the girl lying at his feet with silent shock. After he had summoned her successfully, he had been too ecstatic to carefully look at her face. That was until she had started shaking uncontrollably, forcing him to abandon his pleasure and try and tend to her. He had dropped to his knees and felt her burning skin. Something had bitten her wrist – the marks were unmistakable. He wrapped the wound with charmed leaves to suck out whatever poison was flowing through her veins. Only then had he moved the hair out of her pale face.
He barely remembered springing to his feet; the astonishment had been great enough to nearly render his mind useless. It was the Mudblood from Hogwarts…Granger. Even just the thought of her name made his mind begin to race back to his childhood, especially that final year where terror had haunted him around every corner, even within every part of his own body.
Standing before Voldemort, Draco began to feel his resolve breaking down. When he was called to the Death Eater's meeting, pride had been the only emotion that had dared form. But feeling his new Lord's eyes bore into even the most private areas of his mind was the most violating and intimidating thing he had ever experienced. Doubts began to edge in and devour his pride.
Was he only here to die because of Lucius' mistake? Was the mission to kill Dumbledore not only a test but a death sentence? His mother thought so.
As the year passed, Draco felt his family's safety deteriorating. Voldemort would kill them all if he failed. But even so, as he stood with his wand outstretched in front of Dumbledore, he couldn't bring himself to utter those fatal words. When Snape had completed it for him, all he could do was run with the others. Every sound was blocked out by the ringing in his ears, and colors became washed out with grey. His Headmaster was dead, and it was his fault.
Hermione moaned, startling Draco out of his memories. He turned his back on the girl, biting his lip. She hated him as much he hated her. Old prejudices and hatreds should be gone with the rest of his life, but they clung to him. He would never be a completely good person, and he could almost feel the darkness that tinged his soul. To have called to a Mudblood for help was completely against everything he had been brought up to believe in. And yet, unknowingly, he had.
Her reaction to him was probably going to be just as violent as his to her. She would vehemently blame him for her new fate, and although it was technically his fault, he didn't want to put up with her petulant whining. As she stirred behind him, he leaned against the nearest tree. He would have just left her, but he didn't have the courage to venture into the wilderness that would surely destroy him at its first chance.
With a final groan, Hermione woke up. He kept his back to her, not wanting to see the confusion that would raise too many questions he didn't want to answer.
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The first thing Hermione noticed when she woke up was the lack of sunlight. Fear assaulted her as thoughts of dusk entered her mind. She must have fallen unconscious and now nighttime was creeping in, ready to attack her with all its force.
She quickly rose to her feet, and gasped as she noticed the forest in front of her. It was completely dark within, and the leafy branches seemed to form a guard against whatever lurked in those shadows. The strong smell of rotting flesh seeped from her surroundings, and she backed away.
Suddenly, thoughts of her encounter inside the house came back to her, and she looked at her wrist, expecting to see a mangled bite crawling with infection. Instead, she found it neatly wrapped in leaves and finally noticed the cool, soothing feeling they were giving her injury. She slowly turned around, somehow knowing that her savior would be nearby. Her eyes widened as she saw the figure leaning against a tree, not facing her.
His back was naked, showing off his white skin marred by dirt and scars. He had only a cloak tied around his waist, and it was caked in the red dust that covered the ground they stood on. Blood was dried on his ankles, and she wondered what kind of injuries the cloak hid. His hair was silver, and hung down his back in a tangled curtain.
"Excuse me…do I know you?" She kept her voice low, not wanting to startle the stranger. He didn't flinch, but didn't turn towards her either. She walked slowly to him, and reached out to touch his shoulder.
"Don't touch me, Mudblood." The voice cut through her, and she drew back sharply, not wanting to believe it. She knew he hadn't killed Dumbledore, that he was a soul to be pitied, but she had never released her grudge towards him. He was the one who had introduced her to the prejudices that had eventually destroyed everything. He was the one who let the Death Eaters into the school the first time. Draco Malfoy. The name alone made her skin go cold.
He turned to face her, and his silver eyes met hers defiantly. His pale face had remained untouched by scars, but it was smudged with dirt. Even so, it was etched with the same haughtiness and coldness that it always had been, and Hermione dropped her gaze.
"How did I get here?" She focused on a spot over his shoulder, unable to meet his stare.
"I brought you…I've been coming to you for ages now. Not that I knew who you were, you were just the only presence I could locate." The last sentence was rushed, as if he wanted to remind both himself and her that he didn't want her with him.
"How?" Even through her growing anger, Hermione was still intrigued at the spellwork that would transport her to a completely different place without the summoner even being near her physical being.
"I don't completely know. Voldemort used the same spell to send me here, and I just connected with your mind somehow. You were weak for a moment, and finally I was able to cast it on you."
Hermione's eyes narrowed. "So you just decided to bring me into what could be the most remote place in the entire world, where you have been trapped without a way to get out for three years now?"
Draco hardened, obviously expecting the argument. "It was the only thing I could think of. If I could connect with your mind, maybe there was a reason." He looked nervous at the last words, and visibly searched his own mind.
"Wondering why you 'connected' with a Mudblood?" Hermione turned completely away from him, disgusted. How he was still able to look at her as such a lower-class figure mystified her.
"Maybe." He seemed less sure of himself. "Whatever the reason, though, it worked, and you're here. So get over it. Besides, you would have died anyway, so what's the difference?"
Hermione halted at this. He was right, without the poison being withdrawn from her body; she would have either died or gone mad. She glanced at him, and a small look of triumph crossed his face. He knew she had realized he was right, and looked prepared to take advantage of the moment. Hermione cut him off.
"Well either way, I've let down everybody completely." She sat down heavily, tears threatening to overtake her.
Draco looked interested, and crouched next to her. "So there are others?" Hermione nodded, and told him about the war and the Colony.
By the end of her explanation, Draco was sitting, disbelief etched on his face. He had been banished before the deaths had reached their peak, before so many of his friends had died, his family had murdered so many innocents, and Voldemort had been killed at last. It was a lot of information to take in, and Hermione looked at him, her hatred put aside for a moment.
Her saw her sympathetic look, and cleared his throat. He wouldn't allow her to see any sign of weakness, even in the position they were in. She could use it against him at any time. "How many survived?"
"Almost a thousand. That's only in England, of course. Who knows about the rest of the world…we find survivors every now and then, but haven't for a while."
Hermione looked around the campsite, and gave a small smile as she saw her bag. She went over to it, Draco following her silently. She felt him staring at her back, and shivered slightly. If it suited him, he could kill her at any moment. He was taller, and his lean muscles were highlighted in his pale skin.
"What do you have in there?" He obviously had noticed it before, and Hermione wondered why he hadn't looked through it. Probably too startled by the presence of a Mudblood in his clearing, she thought with a sneer reminiscent of her companion.
"Supplies I was supposed to bring back to the Colony." She glanced back at Draco, unsurprised to see his eyes light up.
She pulled out her treasures, watching him carefully to make sure he didn't touch anything without her permission. She couldn't give him any more of an upper hand than he already had. "Speaking of supplies…what have you been using to stay alive at all?"
He unwillingly looked up from the food and other items, and motioned to a small pile next to the ashy fire pit in the middle of the clearing. She walked over and saw a small comb fashioned from twigs that he had obviously given up trying to use long ago. A toothbrush was made from a thistle attached to a twig, although no toothpaste was present. It was a long way from what he had grown up with, his family's wealth providing for every need or whim he had.
"I use my wand to get water and fire, but other than that, it's pretty useless. This forest soaks up a lot of magic, and when I use any it takes every ounce of energy I have. As for food, there are a couple fruit trees where the light can still come through, and occasionally, an animal wanders by that I can kill. Most of the inhabitants here you can't eat, though." He stopped short, obviously not wanting to talk about the sort of Creatures that lived in the forest. Hermione wondered if they were anything like those which haunted her world.
"Have you tried to leave at all?" At this, he looked at her once again, his eyes clouding over with dark memories.
"That's not something we should try."
"Well, we're going to need to at some point, aren't we? What else are we supposed to do? Just live here until one of us decides to kill the other one for a bit of food, and then just slowly pass on from whatever decides to take their life too? That's not much of a plan."
"Yeah, well it's worked for me for three years, Granger."
"It's worked for you? Then why did you call me here?" Draco only answered her with silence.
"Listen, Malfoy. Whatever is out there is going to either kill us or let us through. Either way it's better than just sitting around here. So if that's what you want to do, you can do it alone. I'm leaving in the morning." Her voice was steadier than she felt, as her eyes slid over the branches that hid the shadowed lands beyond.
A/N: Ok, I know this chapter didn't have too much happening, but more excitement will start very soon! But I have school tomorrow, so I have to get some sleep! So two people mentioned something about the end of chapter two being fluffy, and I'm not sure what they meant…all I could think of was Harry sobbing with Ginny, but Harry isn't a very strong person emotionally, as is seen in canon quite often. He doesn't quite know how to channel his emotions, so him taking comfort with Ginny is something he needs to do, especially after learning one of his best friends was in trouble. Or possibly Ginny being pregnant? This is not a fluffy thing, as to why…this will be explained better later, I don't want to give anything away too soon! Or maybe it's how they saved Snape's life? Again, this is setting up for some important stuff later. Don't get me wrong, I love criticism I'm just confused, so maybe somebody could explain it to me? I don't want this fic to seem fluffy at all, so thanks for the heads up, I just want to know why it seems that way. Thank you again for the reviews, you people are wonderful!