Draco took a large vial from the cauldron and ran out of the room, trying not to spill even a little of the potion. He didn't even think of going to call the headmistress, Potter, or Weaslette; he had to run as fast as he could. He went to the hospital wing, welcomed by a trembling Madam Pomfrey, who took the vial with a snap.

"I don't know if you arrived in time, but it's worth a shot." The nurse said sadly, and went over to Hermione's bed, while Draco sat down on a small stool next to them. Madam Pomfrey leaned over her and poured a little potion between her parted lips, she swallowed, but remained impassive. White as snow, lips red as blood, she breathed slowly, almost imperceptibly, she looked like a marble statue.

The nurse wiped a tear. "Is she... dead?!" asked Draco terrified.

There was only a whisper in response. Madam Pomfrey walked away to her study. Hermione had three days, if she didn't wake up, she was dead. After a while, Harry, Ginny and McGonagall also arrived, and they ran near Draco, in front of Hermione's bed.

"so? Don't tell me... don't tell me..." Ginny stammered trying not to cry.

"Madam Pomfrey said she has three days to wake up, if she doesn't, she's dead." Draco said coldly. It was his defense mechanism since always, when he was more vulnerable, then he had to be cold, in a certain sense evil, not to show anyone that he had feelings.

"Oh no, Hermione, please." Ginny shouted, throwing herself into the arms of her friend as cold as ice.

"thank you Mr. Malfoy, without you, there would not be even a spark of hope for Hermione. I am very proud of you." McGonagall said, adopting the same defense system as Draco. Hermione had always been her favorite student, so similar to her, a bookworm, obviously all the golden trio, but when she watched Hermione raise her hand in class as soon as she asked for something, and the happiness she simply felt in knowing how to respond to a question, there, the inflexible Professor McGonagall was mirrored, and she liked having found someone like that. She was not ready to say goodbye to the brightest witch she had EVER seen, in all her years of teaching, and elsewhere too.

All was left to do was wait; wait for Hermione to give a sign of life.

"guys, I- I'm sorry but... I must go now… Ron- Ron will be wondering where I am. Just... don't tell her I was here." Harry said disappearing from sight.

Hours and days passed. Neither Ginny, nor Draco, showed signs of wonting to leave Hermione's bedside, not even when professor McGonagall herself ordered them to leave. Sometimes they took turns just to eat, and also other friends came to visit her, but it wasn't said them that she could die because they didn't want panic to spread.

Ginny had taken Hermione's favorite book, and had started to read it aloud, while Draco was reading a book that Hermione gave him for Christmas, a book of italian poetry; there were Ungaretti, Leopardi, D'Annunzio, and many others. They sat in turn under the window that overlooked the courtyard, and read, read, and read. They thought Hermione would have loved it, it was her favorite activity.

Draco, he never left the infirmary, not even at night, Ginny stayed up late, went away, and came back early in the morning. They told Hermione everything they had to tell, from the colors of the sunset, to the last gossip of the school, but nothing seemed to change its quiescent state.

It was more or less lunchtime, on the third day since they had given the cure to Hermione, the term.

Ginny had gone to eat in the great hall, and has been replaced by Draco. They knew that Hermione was in excellent hands, with Madam Pomfrey, but they didn't feel like leaving her even a minute, it could be the last.

Draco was sitting on a small chair near Hermione, watching the other students enjoying the last days of their winter holidays outside the window before returning to the hustle and bustle of lessons. He looked down at the poetry book he held in his hands. It was open to an almost completely empty page, there were a few lines.

-Between a flower picked, and the other given, the inexpressible nothing.- [tra un fiore colto e l'altro donato, l'inesprimibile nulla.]

Draco reread those words, which although few and simple, managed to say more than a thousand other words told without thinking.

His gaze fell on the face of the person who slept motionless on the white bed.

All the memories of what had happened since September came back to his mind... when he had insulted her for the last time, when she had found him desperate in the bathroom and decided to help him, when Hermione had lost her parents, when they had finally buried the axes of war. Of the Holly ball, of their hug, peace... and finally of Ginny's scream, a few days before, which signaled Hermione, fallen to the ground, unconscious. He also remembered all that he had made to keep her alive, and with all his heart he hoped that it had not been in vain.

He took one of Hermione's frozen hands that lay motionless, and a twinkle illuminated one of the fingers of that cold hand; the ring that Draco had given her for Christmas.

"Please Hermione, don't leave me now, you taught me a lot of things; what I'm talking about? You taught me everything; you taught me to live! You don't deserve this. Please hold on, this world still needs you, the brightest witch of her age, I still need you, and Ginny, and Blaise, and Morgan, Luna, Neville... and those two stupid Weasley and Potter too. We all still need you here, your know-it-all corrections, and your criticisms that keep us from getting into trouble, not in the case of Potter and Weasley, of course, who would get into trouble anyway.

And above all we need your smile, that warm smile that has always helped us even in bad days, that smile that you have never lost, that you have always had, even when I insulted you, when the world collapsed on you, always." Draco said softly, in a tone he had never used in his entire life, he hoped that somewhere, Hermione could still hear him.

Tears danced on the brink of his eyes, and one, the only tear that Draco Malfoy had ever allowed himself to cry for someone else, fell on Hermione's frozen hand.

"...you said we were going to go through all this, do you remember?" he asked disconsolate.

Hermione heard everything, like underwater, like through a glass, but she heard everything. She slowly lifted an eyelid, blinked few times, and light flooded her mind. She distinguished the figure at her side, the one who had spoken, and slowly she parted her lips and said: "together" a weak and subtle sound, but it was enough.

The blonde's head shoot up immediately and his eyes fixed gaze with those two large chocolate ones that were looking at him. Without thinking about it he closed his arms aroung Hermione and lifted her up from where she was lying, a sincere, warm, hug, one of those that make you feel safe.

"Thank you for coming back," he said softly in her hair.

"How could I abandon you all." she replied falling back with a light thump on the bed. "You wouldn't survive a day without me." She giggled.

"Don't make me frighten like that anymore!"

"I will do my best." she answered smiling.

"Damn it, Hermione, you're breaking my bad boy aura! How dare you? Have you got any idea of how much time it has taken to build it?" Draco sighed finally looking away from her and gesturing at nothing in partcular.

"vaguely." she chuckled. Hermione let out a sigh and stared blankly at the ceiling.

"What happened?" She asked after a few moments.

"You have been poisoned. Probably by Pansy." said Draco with regret towards the one he thought was one of his best friends.

"The... -northern breath- poison... I think."

"but it's lethal, and one of the most powerful! How am I still alive?" T

The infirmary door opened and professor McGonagall entered with Ginny, they had already heard the question.

Ginny, hearing the sound of such a familiar voice, of a voice that she had longed to be able to hear again, threw herself into the room and fell into her friend's arms. "Thank you, Hermione. How would I have done without you? I couldn't lose my best friend." she said softly, breathing deeply.

"Mr. Malfoy saved you." explained McGonagall with a toothy smile, happy that Hermione was still in the world of the living, and very proud of her student from the Slytherin house, a former death eater, who had saved a Gryffindor muggle burn, his former enemy.

Draco's eyes widened. "No. No, it's wasn't really me."

"it was." Ginny said.

"But how did you manage to save me?" Hermione asked bewildered.

"well, you passed out, then Draco, professor McGonagall and I, brought you here, and Madam Pomfrey told us you were poisoned... Ginny started telling Hermione the whole story remembering that Harry asked not to tell her he was there too. She went on without a hitch till she came to brewing the potion.

"Draco gave something to do also to me and the headmistress, because honestly, and without offense, professor, we aren't very inclined for potions." Ginny said hoping that the principal did not take too much.

"You're absolutely right, Miss Weasley." McGonagall reassured her. Ginny's facial muscles relaxed.

"then we left, because McGonagall had urgent things to do, and it was only a matter of time before the potion boiled, as Slughorn had said. As soon as the antidote was ready, of course, Draco wasted no time coming to call us, and he immediately came to Madam Pomfrey, who gave you the cure. She told us that you had three days to wake up, otherwise you were dead." at those words that came out of her mouth, Ginny was still a little troubled, even if her friend was there, in front of her.

Then the headmistress took the floor. "Miss Weasley and Mr. Malfoy stayed here with her all the time, I tried to tell them to go to class, but they didn't listen to me, they were always with her, day and night."

"Thanks! It wasn't necessary!" said Hermione a little embarrassed. " It wasn't necessary?! How do you think we felt, with our best friend one step away from death?! And the only thing that mattered to us was that you woke up!?" Ginny stated. "em okay, maybe you're right. I wouldn't have left the room, too, if it had been one of you two." She reasoned. "Let's hope not." Ginny repleyed.

Draco had been silent all the time, his frozen eyes staring glazed over the window. As he had always done, he didn't show a crumb of a feeling, but processed any accumulated information, trying to untangle the knots that infested his thoughts.

"Thanks, I wouldn't be here without you." Said Hermione.

Ginny was sitting next to Hermione, who was leaning against the wall behind her; Ginny leaned over and hugged her friend.

Draco looked at them sitting on his chair; he wasn't going to hug them, he didn't want to seem an emotional person, and then he had to keep his bad boy aura anyway.

Hermione met the gaze of his frozen eyes from Ginny's hug, and Draco gave her a slight smile.