AN/ This oneshot was inspired by the song by the The Fray- how to save a life. This weaves in, and out of events before, during, and after the battle of Hogwarts. Hermione has become the new Professor of Muggle studies. Hogwarts is haunted by all of the ghosts from the day of the battle. The story begins 5 years after the Battle has concluded. I have read countless Dramione stories, and wanted to try my hand at my own.


The castle was colder than Hermione could ever remember it being. Even with the newly stoked fireplace in the corner of her room, the concreted walls were impossible to keep warmth in. Her fingertips tingled. She threw the tattered quilt from her body, and wriggled down from her bed. It was wrought iron, and Hermione suspected it to be much older than Albus Dumbledore had been. It creaked each time she readjusted herself. It was probably a much nicer room than most of the Professors at Hogwarts were alotted.

Even this many years after the war, she knew she still received special treatment. It's why she hadn't chosen to follow Harry, and Ron to the ministry. Among one other reason. Harry, and Ron had been made Aurors almost as soon as they had stepped through the doors. No training, no certifications. Not for a war hero. Hermione wanted to earn her accolades. She never felt like a war hero after all. Heroes saved people.

When Minerva had turned up at her flat back in August, Hermione knew immediately she would be accepting whatever offer she was extended. She had dwelled far to long in Australia. She was hoping that her parents memories might be salvaged. It had not worked out that way, sadly. Every spell had been tried. They were safe though, and at least they had each other.

Hermione could be alone, she had grown used to it. After the war Harry, and Ron had tried so hard. It broke her heart to keep turning them away. No to dinners, no to drinks, no to Sunday brunch at the borrow with the Weasley clan. After the battle of Hogwarts a part of Hermione had died, she accepted that. Moving passed it however was another battle.

So many lost souls haunted the grounds at Hogwarts. Hermione had spent countless hours on research. Desperate, and grasping at anything she thought that might right the tragic circumstance she found herself in. Hogwarts had always been haunted, but in a single day the ghost population had doubled. Everyone who died at the battle had become a ghost. Forever doomed to haunt the halls of Hogwarts. Never aging, never changing.

Voldemort himself had not been immune to the plight of the dead, he to was among the haunted spirits. Most days you won't see him, but once in awhile he can be found pacing around the astronomy tower. As such Hermione made it a priority to avoid that part of the castle. She hoped someday she might be able to help them crossover, to put them at peace.

Hermione looked out her window, out across the black lake you could just make out the coming sunrise. She would have an earlier start than most mornings, but that was good. She tossed on a worn out jumper with holes, a pair of black jeans, and her best cloak to stay warm.

Ever since she had come back to the castle she had decided that among her duties as a professor, she would figure out a way to free the spirits. The new and old ones if they so chose.

Hermione had already exhausted plenty of worthwhile spells but it was dead end, after dead end. Forgive the pun. Now Hermione had only one idea left, she had nothing else.

This is what brings her to a freezing cold morning in the midst of the forbidden forest. With her she has only her wand and her map. She created sections on the map marking the already searched areas in a grid. Then the ones she had yet to comb over as of yet. This would take her years, she knew that. What other choice was there? Giving up certainly wasn't one. She was looking for an actual needle in a haystack.

Hermione Granger would always go above and beyond for those she loved. In life, and in death that was certain. Hermione had plenty of time on her hands for her search. She was not married, no children, and worked in the same place the ghosts were. She was deeply invested.

Nearly 3 hours later, an utterly exhausted Hermione spells the mud away from her cloak, and heads back to the castle. The grounds were almost exactly the same as they were when she had been a student. Hogwarts still looked like home to her.

Having decided against a bath, and instead deciding to head straight for her classroom and begin her day. Hermione walks passed the great hall, she can make out the little first years still timidly conversing with one another over pumpkin juice, and biscuits. The bonds of friendship were still fresh for them. They were still getting to know each other, and it must have made her nostalgic.

Before she realized it her feet had carried her off in a new direction. The trophy room. There was a spell on it she knew, that kept the trophies neat, tidy, and very shiny.

He was here most often, when Hermione had seen him since coming back to the castle. It still surprised her to see the stark white blonde hair of Draco Malfoy, as he stared intently into the trophy case at one plaque in particular.

He looked exactly the same as Hermione remembered him from the battle. Black suit, and tie. Both slightly torn. Handsome as always. Only now he hovered, and his skin, and hair had taken on an even paler hue than before. Than before death had touched him. Hermione also knew that if he were to remove his jacket, a rather large stain could be seen. Dried blood. Draco Malfoy had died at the battle of Hogwarts five years ago, and now he haunted the grounds.

"Granger?" He called when he spotted her, uncertain if it was indeed her. Uncertain because she had aged. She had grown into a woman's curvature, and no longer sported an unruly head of hair like she had in her youth. Her locks were feminine, and sculpted now.

"Yes, Malfoy?" She assessed him unsure of which Draco she might get today. Ghosts, especially new ones had famously unpredictable memories. Somedays he would know he was dead, and others he thought he was still a student.

"This trophy, it says it's mine." He motions at her to take a look inside the case. Moving to the side to allow her a better vantage point.

"Indeed. It does say Draco Malfoy." She confirmed for him.

He looked terribly confused, and rather uncomfortable to be talking to her of all people.

"I cannot recall being given that trophy, Granger." Imploring her to understand his confusion, to fill in some blanks. He was distressed, she could tell by the way his hands sat behind his head supporting the weight of it. As his head tried desperately to make sense of all of this.

So it was the Draco who did not remember dying today. From the way he looked at her it was also one that did not remember much of their final months at Hogwarts either. He was standing as far away as possible while still standing close enough to converse with her.

"For a meritorious act to the school, it says." She supplied to him.

That had perturbed him. "I CAN read, mud-" he sat his face in his palms in frustration. "I just don't remember how i got the bloody thing!"

"It sounds like you were very brave Draco." She looked up at where he should be in the reflection of the glass, but she could only see herself. Ghosts had no reflection.

He had not even realized her slip. Draco. Not Malfoy.

"Just go." He commanded, tired of her company, and her lack of assistance. She nodded, curtly. She had learned early on in her interactions with him, that he never seemed to remember their conversations very long if at all. This kind of existence, Hermione felt was most cruel.

In hind sight Draco's fate had not nearly been as cruel as some of the other ghosts from the battle. Bellatrix for instance had been blasted into tiny bits, and had never fully reformed before becoming a spirit. Bits of her used to zip around the castle like paper, and haphazardly attack the students. Minerva had finally decided to collect her pieces, and they were magically sealed into a box. The box then stored somewhere in Minerva's office, for the prospective of forever. Now that was truly a fate worse than death.

As Hermione trudged her way to her classroom, she allowed herself to reminisce. On the very first time she had seen Draco after the battle, as a ghost.

It was the morning after the battle, Draco had been the first ghost to appear. Before that no one had even thought it a possibility. After him came many others. Hermione had barely just cried herself to sleep when Ron had shaken her awake. Instinctively she had grabbed her wand, and ran after him down the corridor expecting some new peril, until she saw Draco Floating. Covered in blood, pale, but smiling. Smiling at Hermione.

At first it seemed like a gift. She hadn't lost him after all. He was here. They spoke that entire day until Hermione fell asleep, so happy to have not lost one another after all. They were together. For days, weeks, months. They watched Hogwarts be rebuilt from the ground up. Harry, Ron and many others like Hermione had chosen to live at the school for the time being. Soon though people were moving on with their lives. Harry wanted to move in with Ginny, he wanted to be an auror and round up the remaining death eaters. Ron was itching to do the same, to move passed the horrors of what had been their childhood. Start a life.

They had spoken to Hermione, begged her to come with them. She wouldn't. She would not leave Draco behind. Around this same time she started realizing Draco had issues. He was More than forgetful. They would have whole conversations and he would have no memory of them. It scared her. She feared that his transition had somehow been corrupted by how he died. That the transition had failed in someway, and that all of his memories would eventually slip away.

Even as a ghost Draco was every bit her match. He was smart. He knew something was off, he knew he was missing bits of his memories. Many occasions he had to ask how he had died, how his mother was.

Then one night he suddenly remembered her parents were alive out there in Australia waiting for her. The battle had been almost a year ago. The school was going to open back up to students soon. Draco had it in his head that she needed to find them, to live on with them.

"I can't even touch you." He whispered, painfully.

They were in the middle of a row.

"You know i don't care about any of that Draco." She insisted.

She really didn't. She just wanted to be with the boy she fell in love with before the war. The boy who had died to save her life. She owed him everything. Beyond him she couldn't see any semblance of a life. She felt she had been given a second chance with Draco. It was a half life, but it was all she had.

"Potter, and Weasley are out there somewhere alive, breathing, getting married, having lives without you. While you exile yourself to walk the same stones you've walked a thousand times Hermione." He sighed.

"That's what they want, not what i want Draco. I just want to be with you." Her eyes were welling up with tears. They had been through the same fight already. She was stuck on a carousel, with a person with half a memory.

"What about what i want, Hermione? I am the dead one after all. Don't i get some final request? Some last favor i can ask of you?" If he could touch her, she thought perhaps he would have pulled her chin up to look at him. "I don't want you here. I want you out there living. Making your life worthwhile. The brightest witch of my age cannot waste away inside a dirty old castle. I won't have it."

"I don't know what to do." She choked out as the tears spilled out passed her lashes.

"You need to leave me my love. Find your parents. Maybe you can reverse the spell. Spend time with Potter, and Weasley. Get to know their blasted offspring. Anything is better than spending one more night here rotting away. If i could leave with you, i would. This is the last thing i will ever ask of you. Please Hermione, live."

After when she finally left she did what Draco said. She tried to undo her parents spell. When that hadn't worked she got to know Harry, and Ron again for a time. It had been so long though, they had so many new stories that did not include her. They had moved passed her. Only she had lived in the past for so long. Harry had married Ginny, 3 children. Ron had married the surviving Patil sister, no children as of yet. They had both wanted her to stay longer, but she had promised Draco to live.

So she made a list of everything and Anything she could think of that she had ever wanted to do. Skydiving, snorkeling, flying a broomstick over Salem on Halloween, and an Opera. Once she did them all she thought she would spend more time in australia. Maybe the spell would lift with time she hoped.

Then Minerva had come with her offer. Teach at Hogwarts for muggle studies. Before she could go back though she knew there was one last thing she needed to do. Someone she needed to see. For Draco.

It had been pouring buckets on the evening she came through the floo at Malfoy manor. Hermione's cloak was drenched. Narcissa Malfoy had accepted her request for a visit. The manor was like she remembered it from years previous. Dark, oppulent, but emptier than before. The weight of the air around her made her wonder if the manor knew it's last heir had died, and that it was slowly allowing itself to slip into decay.

Narcissa was a beauty that was certain. Her son had inherited her good looks, silver eyes, and Hermione could make out some of the same mannerisms she had associated to Draco. She peered at Hermione as she righted herself, and shook the soot from her. Narcissa did not quite know what to make of this visit. A war hero come to call on the last living Malfoy, it seemed preposterous. Narcissa thought it surely had been a mistake.

"Miss Granger." She greeted, every bit the homemaker she was raised.

"Hello Mrs. Malfoy. I would like to tell you the entire truth about the day your son died, if that's allright with you." Hermione would allow her that option. She could send her away now, and Hermione would understand. When you put someone's death to bed it was hard to pull it out again.

"My son-" she paused looking for the words "they tell me he died a hero."

"He did. I was with him, can i tell you the full story? Not just the parts wizard weekly likes to print."

Narcissa motions for Hermione to sit at a chair further into the room. There are portraits on the walls. Members of the Malfoy family, and some of the blacks. None are of Draco.

"Please. Tell me." Hermione had often wondered why Narcissa had not come to the castle seeking Draco out. Now she knew. Narcissa could not bear to look at his pictures, there was no way she could look at his face, his dead face.

"I loved your son." Narcissa's features are schooled, no emotion shows itself. "I thought it was important to tell you that, so you knew someone else loved him."

"And did he, return that sentiment?"

"Yes. When we were 6th years we saw each other mostly in secret, it was awkward at first. But somehow we kept making it work." Hermione paused to think of what to say next.

"When you were brought to the manor that summer, did he-"

"Let us get away?" Hermione supplied. "Yes. I'm sorry if that upsets you."

"I think it was brave of him, actually. Miss Granger i do hope you know i have seen the errors of my ways, if you will. I am incredibly sorry for what my family, and others like us put you through." Narcissa's lips were pursed.

"I didn't come here for an apology. I'm sorry this is harder than i thought it would be." It was agony. Talking to someone she knew so intimately but who had barely even known that Hermione existed.

"Tell me how it happened dear, what you remember from when he died. I never got much detail, except that he saved someone's life." She smiled encouragingly at Hermione.

Everything came out quickly, like a ramble. "We had just left the room of requirement. Harry was battling Voldemort outside. There were spells flying around everywhere. I wouldn't let Draco take me away. I needed to stay close in case Harry needed me. Voldemort he saw Draco, with me. He knew he was on our side. He threw the killing curse right at me. It was going to hit me but it didn't-" she was choking back a sob.

"He took the killing curse for you." Narcissa was gutted, but not for the reasons Hermione might have thought. Narcissa did not blame Hermione for her son's choice but rather she was more proud of him than she had ever been of anything in her entire life. He had saved the girl he loved, at the cost of his own. To Narcissa there was no death more respectable than Draco's. Now though she understood why she had not been told the full story. There had probably been fear that Narcissa might retaliate against Hermione. "Thank you for telling me."

"That's not all." Hermione was most worried about this last bit, scared Narcissa would not agree with her. Narcissa raised one brow. "I'm going to free the spirits. The ones bound to Hogwarts."

"I've been told that can't be done Miss Granger. I paid good money to a-lot of respectable wizards who have said it can't be done."

"I have some ideas, i think might work. There is a resurrection stone on the grounds, lost, somewhere. If i can find it i think it can make the ghosts solid enough again to allow them to transition into death once more. This time though we would ensure they don't have any unfinished business to pull them back." She was afraid to look at Narcissa. Afraid she might see that same look in Draco's eye that meant he was nonplussed.

"If anyone can figure it out, it's you Miss Granger. You have my blessing. I would like my son to be at peace."

Narcissa had summoned a tea set that poured itself, and a tray of biscuits. When they had finished them Hermione had gone on her way. On her way into the next part of her life.

It wasn't until little laurel Finnegan a Gryffindor had been shoved in the doorway, by Nathaniel Nott that Hermione broke free of her reverie. The girls bag had ripped open, spilling out books and quills. Hermione had sat frozen at her desk when the children had started piling in, lost in her thoughts.

"5 points from Slytherin. You can all thank Mr. Nott." Hermione called as she helped the girl up. Groans from the Slytherins around the room.

Though something extraordinary happened, as Hermione helped her stand she saw a look in the young Gryffindors eye as she watched the Slytherin boy. She knew that look. That was the look she had always given Draco. Another generation of star crossed lovers Hermione mused to herself. She hoped that their stories would have much kinder endings than she and Draco had received.

Hermione began her lesson the same way she did every class. By thinking about the boy who died so she could live. She would never be finished grieving him.