Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The plot is all mine though!

We will make you whole. You are close, Draco. Your hunger will end.

Eyes were flashing from the shadows that threatened to envelop the two lean figures moving through the darkness. Draco was drawing from a supply of strength he didn't know he possessed to keep himself in the lead with the light. Every time Hermione touched his shoulder to try and take over his position, he would shake her off with an animalistic snarl. Her touch felt like fire against his cold skin.

The girl behind him was only an ungrateful Mudblood, as the voices reminded him over and over. She was only meat. She had rejected their offering of the perfect clearing, marring it with her presence. But they would get their revenge.

He knew he was closer, and he could see cloaked figures moving silently along them through the winding trail of dead animals. Hermione gasped at the first sight of them, and clutched onto Draco's pale arm. He had nearly screamed as her fingers threatened to burn through his skin, and had thrown her to the ground. He had looked at her then, and her amber eyes met his. At that moment, his head had seemed to clear, and the voices faded. His stomach turned, and he had lifted his eyes from hers with a start, only to connect them with gleaming silver ones that lurked beneath one of the figures held back by their light.

Join us now. We will take you the rest of the way.

Draco nodded silently, and reality slipped away once more. He let his wand go out and the instant the darkness consumed them, long fingers snaked over his shoulders. Hermione shrieked and Draco curled up his lips, knowing that they had reached out to her as well. But suddenly light flooded the clearing once again, Hermione's face fierce in the glow coming from her wand. A hiss echoed through the trees, and the grip on Draco's shoulder was relinquished.

"Draco! Come back to me!" Hermione stepped over to Draco, fear twisting her features into a hard mask. He drew away from her, afraid that she would burn him again with her searing touch.

Take away your prey's light. You will get to stand over her; rip through her…she will be your first.

Draco shook his head, trying to clear away the confusion in it, and just focus on the task in front of him. As he raised his hand, he stared at it in wonder. He wasn't directing it completely, it looked like somebody else's hand in front of him, reaching out to grab Hermione's wrist. She started, and clutched her wand as she backed away from him. He felt, rather than saw, the shadows creeping over his back.

Terror was making Hermione's eyes glow, and Draco shrunk from her as light poured around her, protecting her from his icy touch. He snarled and circled her, staring at the weak skin that covered her veins with primal lust. She whimpered, and the light dimmed. Draco saw his chance and pounced on her, pinning her underneath him. As they stared at each other in the final moments of light, her body melted his.

She is yours.

The voice was hissing in his ear, and finally Hermione heard it.

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Ginny stared at the statue of Hermione. The dark glow pouring from it was increasing, turning into a complete veil of black. She knew her friend was still alive, for the statue would crumble at the moment of her death. She shuddered as she imagined what kind of horrors Hermione was experiencing.

She felt a hand on her back, and she turned around to see Pansy's eyes coolly looking into her own. The pale girl's black hair was neatly framing her face, and she looked as composed as ever. She had changed during their sixth from the whiny Slytherin brat everyone had once known, and with good reason.

"Draco is still alive, Ginny." A tear escaped, and ran down her normally stony face. Ginny bit her lip, and clutched the other girl's hands in her own.

"How do you know?"

"I felt him. Finally…I felt him." Ginny smiled at the girl, knowing that she had been searching for a sign from her friend for years, using a long-distance form of Legilimency tirelessly and fruitlessly against Draco's tightly sealed mind. But Pansy shook her head. "Something is horribly wrong. All his defenses are down, but his mind is blank. I can't see where he is, but it's somewhere unreachable."

Pansy's eyes fluttered shut, and she reached her had up, pressing it against her temple. "It hurts to connect with him; it's as if something else is trying to keep me out."

Ginny reached out and touched her unexpected friend's face gently. "It's a step, Pansy. Hopefully one that will lead to you getting through to him soon."

Pansy nodded, and looked over Ginny's shoulder at the veiled statue. "Do you think Hermione will be alright?"

Ginny nodded, tears springing to her eyes. "She's the strongest witch I know. I just hope that's enough."

Pansy comforted Ginny the best that she could, and then laid her hand on the ever growing stomach that the red-head was sporting. "How much longer now?"

"Two months, maybe a little longer." Ginny's voice was barely a whisper as she stared at her stomach. She was the next woman due; there would be nobody else to test the air before her own child. She knew this baby was the hope of the Colony now. Surely the child of their Savior would be strong enough to withstand the magic in the air…but Ginny still felt dread at the thought of the birth.

"Everything will be ok, Ginny. It has to be." Ginny nodded tightly at Pansy's words, afraid to speak due to the sobs that would accompany it. Pansy squeezed her shoulder once more and left, leaving Ginny alone with only her thoughts.

Pansy had approached Harry after the battle, rage still burning in her black eyes. She explained to him why she was on his side; why she was determined to fight against the Lord that so many of her friends had turned to.

It was purely for Draco. She saw how her friend slowly crumbled that year underneath Voldemort's hand, and although he had never told her what his task was, she knew it was destroying him slowly. Eventually, all that was left of him was a shell.

She was unwavering in her main undertaking, to find Draco and get her friend back fully, but on the way she was one of Harry's most useful warriors.

Ginny shook her head, not wanting to think more of Pansy's contributions, because that would force her to think of the day that had changed everything.

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Hermione heard the slithering voices all around her, whispering promises of death and power. She didn't want to open her eyes, but her mind forced her to look at the beings around her as her hand groped for the wand in her robes. Finding it, she allowed herself a small sigh of relief before a glimpse of what surrounded her took her breath away completely.

It was only light enough to catch the faintest out lines of the white-skinned wraiths that circled her and Draco, who was beside her, still unconscious. As she caught the gaze of a pair of hooded, silver eyes, she whimpered low in her throat. A black cape covered the figure, allowing only those two gleaming points to show.

She felt the hatred rise within her from some unknown area, and suddenly she wanted to kill anything that came near her. A movement directed her attention to the pale boy at her feet and she stared with awe at the blood that pumped through the translucent skin at his wrists. Something rebelled though, and she felt the light magic rise within her in protest of the deathly thoughts that were running through her darkening mind.

Draco stirred again and sat up, and Hermione felt a small rise of hope at the fact his eyes were no longer completely white, but shone as silvery as the creatures that were around them. He looked at her, and his face shone with an emotion Hermione couldn't read. Hunger lurked beneath anything else, a ravenous desire for something known only to him.

"Can you hear them?" His eyes shifted to the figures that were slowly closing in on them as he spoke, his voice an awed whisper. Hermione only shook her head in response – all she could hear was indecipherable hissing. The only words she had been able to understand still haunted her. The creature had told Draco that she was his.

"What do you want with me, Draco?" He looked at her, a lethal smile playing on his lips.

"Why are you calling me by my first name?"

"It seems to get your attention better." Her voice was openly defiant, but it quavered slightly at his cold features.

"They told me you would be my first kill." The creatures in the forest seemed to laugh, their pointed teeth flashing even in the dim light.

Hermione paled as Draco began to move toward her. "No…Draco, you aren't a killer. Remember Dumbledore…"

He snarled, his marble features marring horribly with the expression. "I was weak. They are going to make me strong, give me power."

"Do you honestly believe that? They put you in some sort of trance…they made you eat rotted food under the illusion it was perfect. Think what else they could do."

"No! You just couldn't see its perfection, you filthy Mudblood…"

Kill her now…

Hermione heard the voices as they joined together silkily to give her a death sentence. Draco pulled himself up, so that he was standing over her, proclaiming his superiority. Hermione traced her wand lightly with her trembling fingers.

Draco pulled out his wand, and held it at arms length so that it was pointed at her heart.

No…taste the blood that will run from her body.

Draco hesitated before putting his wand away and picking up a sharp stick from the ground. Hermione froze as he knelt beside her, tracing her skin with the pointed end before pressing just hard enough for blood to rise to the surface before trickling slowly out of the wound. He stared at it before running his finger through it.

Her dark blood contrasted with his white skin perfectly, and it glistened with strange power as he gazed at it in shock.

"Were you expecting it to look different from yours?" Her question was soft enough so that he could barely hear her but he closed his eyes gently, letting her know that her assumption was right.

She watched as he waged a war with himself, tearing his now open eyes from the blood to the figures who were watching silently around them. Eventually he shook his head, and turned back to Hermione, tracing the thin skin on her throat with a fingernail. She felt the pressure increase, but right before he cut through, he hesitated, an expression of defeat on his face. It was enough for Hermione.

A/N: If you like it or if you don't just please review it means so much to me to know that people are appreciating, or even just reading and creating opinions of my writing. Thank you so much to those who do!