Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The song used in this chapter belongs to Avenged Sevenfold.

A/N: I'm a hideously bad writer when it comes to satisfying readers' demands. I honestly have no excuses, so I'm just going to hope that this chapter will win my readers' forgiveness!

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Kiss of the Traitor

Chapter Ten: Betrayed

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"How is she?" Ginny asked Harry.

Harry was sitting at the kitchen table and halfheartedly spooning some casserole down his throat under the threatening stance of Ron's wand, and he looked up when Ginny marched into Number 12, Grimmauld Place and asked the question in a tone of voice that indicated she would not appreciate anything but the plain, brutal truth.

He replied honestly, "Well, she refuses to be treated like an invalid, and so she wanders around and she hasn't shown any sign of fainting again, which is a good sign. Snape and McGonagall's Pepper-Up potions seem to be slowing down the onset of the sickness poison, but I can't say she's getting better. She can't. There's only one way she can, and I guess Ron told you about it already, so…" he shrugged, and stared off into space, at some unseen point on the kitchen wall. Ron looked at Ginny and his expression twitched as if he was trying to say "lay off the poor bugger, all right? He's not having an easy time".

Ginny placed her hands on her hips. "Where is she now?" she asked, though more gently.

"Her room," said Harry, and he hesitated, swallowing, before he added, "She collected all our old photographs and wants to make an album. When Ron, tactful git that he is, asked her whether she wanted to make sure we remembered her once she was gone, she nodded simply and said 'yes'. Then she said, 'I want you to remember the happier times, anyway, and not remember me as a sick and fragile person'."

Ron withdrew his wand and turned away towards the window. It didn't help much; in the snow-frosted glass they could see him blinking away tears. Ginny rubbed her eyes, obviously doing the same, and Harry just stared down into his casserole, wondering how everything could have gone so wrong.

He stood up abruptly, making Ron and Ginny start, and he grabbed his coat. "I'm going out for a walk," he said in an undertone, and before either of them could protest that it was too cold or that a stray Death Eater might find him and get the better of him, or that Hermione might call and he wouldn't be here (because he knew, judging from her withdrawn, distant, sad behavior of the past few days, that she wouldn't call for him), he added, "I'll be fine and my coat is warm and Hermione doesn't trust me, and I can't make her, so she won't call for me if she can help it. All right? I need to go. I need to feel the cold wind. I need to hurt on the outside. Will one of you stay with her?"

"We'll both be here, mate, don't worry," said Ron, looking rather shaken by Harry's speech.

"I think I'll go upstairs and see her," Ginny added, glancing worriedly at Ron as if she wasn't sure who to feel sorrier for: Hermione or Harry. "Be careful and don't wander too far, Harry. McGonagall might come calling with some information."

He shrugged without responding and walked out the door, head bowed, wondering, once again, how he could possibly make it right after the immensity of his betrayal of her.

Ginny left Ron to go and wake Luna up (she'd fallen asleep in the library) and to have a conversation with Sirius's portrait, and went upstairs to where Hermione's room was. Memories washed over as she walked down the corridor, each step bringing a new one. Laughing with Hermione about boys, and their shared disgust of the silly way they behaved. Hermione comforting her after that Dementor's appearance in the train. How valiantly Hermione had beamed at them after Harry had kissed her in the common-room, trying so hard to be happy for them. Hermione was Ginny's best friend. She'd gotten through three years without her somehow, but she didn't know if she could do it again.

As she reached Hermione's door, Ginny heard a strange sound that made her stop, hand halfway to the door, about to knock. It was the sound of music. Ginny knew Hermione had one of those Muggle radios in her room and that she often listened to music, but this sounded like something they called 'hard stone'… no, hard rock, that was what it was. And Ginny wasn't sure Hermione was the hard-rock kind of girl.

She strained to hear the lyrics, and they made her stiffen.

Passion in my eyes, I lived it everyday,

but how could you go and throw it all away?

In my dreams it's me and you,

it's there I saw it all come true

As time went by, faith in you grew,

so one thing's left for me to do

I feel it burn inside,

burn in me like the rising sun

Lifted into the sky,

took away the only thing I loved

I know after tonight,

all your power crumbles in my arms

So don't worry, I'll be fine,

when my life ends, I'll leave this scar

Ginny realized there were tears trickling down her face, and she hastily wiped them away and then entered the room to see Hermione lying on her bed and staring out of the window with liquid eyes, a single tear rolling down her cheek, a faint, sad smile playing along her lips. Ginny walked towards her on slightly shaky steps, then straightened and sat down on the edge of the bed. She heard a little more of the song –

I started here so young and helped you get along

Just did it for the love, and people healed through us

Don't live your life in vain, don't take it out on me

You're cracked, so just remember, I'm not your enemy

I don't deserve to fall this way, by a man who felt betrayed

– and couldn't bear to hear anymore, and she quickly turned the radio off. Hermione's smile shifted slightly, as if she was aware that Ginny had turned off the song, but she continued to stare out of the window with that sad smile and tear-filled eyes, single tears following the single trail down her pale face.

"Hermione," Ginny said softly, "Hermione, are you all right? Do you feel okay?"

Hermione's eyes didn't waver as she answered dreamily, "Look at the tree. It's still green, Ginny, it's still green. But the leaves are falling off, one by one. I've counted them ever since they started to fall. Thirty-two, and there are about a thousand left, I'd say. But if twenty fall each hour, the tree ought to be bare by Friday. It ought to be dead by Friday. It can only hold on for so long… it's not strong enough to hold on forever with nothing to hold onto."

Ginny began to cry, and she didn't even bother to hide it this time. "Don't say that," she pleaded, "Hermione, please, there are people here who love you and you can hold onto them. Harry… Harry loves you, whatever else might happen. You have to hold on. Don't let go."

"The wind is so cold, Ginny. It blows mercilessly. The tree hurts, it hurts everywhere, can't you see? How long do you want it to suffer?"

"Hermione – "

"The leaves are falling. You can't stop them."

Ginny said fiercely, "We can glue them on magically, if that's what it'll take to give you hope."

"When I was small," Hermione said softly, smiling that dreamy, sad smile again, "My mother told me an O. Henry short story as a bedtime story. There was a very sick girl in it, and she believed that she would die when the last leaf fell. And there was a landlord in their building, a man who wanted to be a painter, and he painted his dream, his masterpiece, only a few hours before he died from cold. You know what that masterpiece was? He painted a leaf on the tree so that the girl had hope and so that she held on until she got better. And he died for it. I don't want anyone dying for me in the cold. But would they try, Ginny? Do you think Harry will paint a leaf for me so that I live?"

"Harry would do anything for you, Hermione. But… but you have to trust him if you want him to save you. He can't save you so long as you hurt because of what he did, so long as you can't bring yourself to depend on him."

Hermione turned her head away from the window at last, and looked Ginny straight in the eye. And she looked so tired, and yet so full of a desperate strength, that Ginny choked back a sob. "I've hurt enough," she said flatly. "When I needed him, he let me fall. If I need him again, I'm too afraid that he'll let me fall again. I love Harry. I'd die for him. But I don't know if I can ever trust him again."

"Have you ever thought of how much he hurt?"

"All the time," said Hermione bitterly, "I'm afraid, too, that I'll hurt him again. Can I take the risk? I don't know anymore. I don't know anything anymore, Ginny. Nothing. I was once the clever one, the storehouse of knowledge. Now? Nothing. Nothing but an aching, hollow emptiness."

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Harry found himself in Diagon Alley. He didn't know how he got there, how, in the space of an hour and a half, he had managed to walk all the way into Diagon Alley, but he was here. He looked around, at the happy hustle and bustle of people doing their wandering or their shopping. Some distance away, he saw a young girl with bushy brown hair looking around in wonder and absolute incredulity. A Muggleborn, obviously, newly introduced to the world of magic. There was a lump in Harry's throat that wouldn't go away.

He was being followed. He could sense the presence following him some distance away, and he didn't care. It was probably Ginny or Tonks or Terry or Ernie or somebody like that, sent to trail him and make sure he didn't get himself into any trouble or didn't get attacked. A small boy stopped him and asked him for his autograph. Harry smiled mechanically, his patented shy awkward smile, and signed the piece of parchment. He hated that part of being the Boy who Loved, the Boy who Won. He hated being treated like a celebrity, as if he was famous because he lived and what of all those who had died? Forgotten. Grimly, his jaw set, he walked against the cold wind past the Christmas decorations and sales all over the place. Christmas. It would be here in five days. It seemed strange that something so normal could still exist. When was the last time he'd had a merry Christmas?

On impulse, Harry, catching sight of a jeweler's store, went in and bought something. He could deal with presents for everybody else later, but he had seen something he wanted very badly to get Hermione, to maybe make her Christmas a little better. He buried the package deep in his coat pocket, his fingers closing around his wand as he did so. He pulled it out.

Then he turned off down a lonely but relatively well-lit alley. He wasn't afraid of being mugged. He was Harry Potter, after all, he thought with a twist of irony. No one was going to attack him, either because they simply didn't want to or because they were too afraid to. He continued walking down the alley purposefully, counting the doors all along the walls, as if he knew exactly where he was going. He was aware of a hooded figure following him down the alley at a leisurely pace, as if he or she was just idly strolling. Harry knew better. He stopped next to a rundown 'closed for repairs' shop window and peered inside. The figure behind him, obviously realizing it would make no sense to stop as well and give himself/herself away, strolled past him.

As soon as the person, whoever it was, moved behind Harry, Harry turned astonishingly quickly, grabbed the figure and pushed him against the wall, though not very hard (he didn't want to hurt Terry or Ernie or whoever it was). He pushed the tip of his wand against the hooded face. "You really have to stop following me," he said grimly.

Then he yanked down the hood.

And his eyes went wide. The face was one he knew very well, though he hadn't seen it in many years. The head of smooth blond hair was straggly and untidy, and the thin frame wasn't as tough as it once was, and there was no hint left of a swagger. Even the cold grey eyes were tired and almost fearful of the wand pressed against its jaw.

"Malfoy," Harry hissed, taking a step back but keeping his wand trained on the young man standing opposite him. "I thought you vanished into hiding after the Ministry broke your nose and wand and placed a ban of your ever using magic?"

Draco Malfoy, due to his youth and his sincere regret, had been given a conditional pardon and had not been sent to Azkaban when the Death Eaters had been arrested and disbanded. He had been warned never to use magic again, that authorities would know and his wand and nose had been broken for good measure. Now he was here, after nearly four years of silence, and Harry had not expected to see him again.

"I haven't broken any of the rules," Malfoy said bitterly, "Haven't touched magic in years. I came to find you, Potter."

"Yeah, I got that, considering you were following me. What's up? Trying to figure whether it would be a good idea for you and your remaining Death Eater pals to do me in? I'll make it easy for you: don't bother. I don't have time for your rubbish, all right? So get out of here before I decide that I'd like to dish out some punishment for the hell you've put us through."

Malfoy didn't budge, but he eyed the wand, and he forced calm. "Look, Potter, you want to hear what I have to say. I'm trying to help you. You have to trust me."

Harry let out a bitter laugh. "Trust seems to be the real keyword of my life. That, and betrayal. Are those familiar to you, Malfoy? Now, I barely even trust Snape and I know he's on our side: why would I trust you? No, forget that, why would you want to help me? That's the more interesting question, I think."

"I never hated Dumbledore," Malfoy said abruptly, and he sounded strangled, "And the man was a real pain in the – but he tried, Potter, he tried to save me even when I was going to kill him. I feel responsible for his death and I know he cared about you. So, consider this my way of trying to make up for what I did to the old man. I'm trying to do the right thing just this once. So don't make it harder than it already is to help you, all right?"

"I'll give you five seconds to talk," said Harry brusquely, "So make good use of it."

"The old Death Eaters – about five of them are left, I think, and they're not a threat – still fawn over me because of who my father was. So I see them now and again. Since your pal dealt with Greyback, he's no longer a problem, but Dolohov is still one. He's bitter and he wants revenge; he's not willing to crawl into the shadows with the rest of us. My five seconds up yet?"

"Go on, I'm listening," growled Harry.

"Greyback told Dolohov about your visit to him. Dolohov figures you might actually be able to save Hermione Granger, so he wants to cut you off. He's been outside Grimmauld Place for ages, he followed you there once, and he's been waiting for you to leave so he can break in and get to her and finish her off."

Harry felt something explode inside him. It was pure, absolute panic.

"You mean he could be there now?"

"He probably has managed to break in by now, yeah."

"But – but the Fidelius Charm – "

"Potter, if you were any slower, you'd be going backwards," said Malfoy with a sneer, "Dumbledore's dead, remember, and he was your Secret-Keeper! You and your lot never created a new one! The place is open to anyone once they get past the Unplottable charms, which Dolohov figured out in a short time."

Harry didn't wait to hear anymore. He started running, and, mid-run, he Apparated into thin air.

Oh, God, he prayed, Please don't let me be too late.

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TBC.

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