Chapter Two

When Hermione appeared to be out of sight, he ordered his personal houself, Twitchy (he did have a twitch in his left eye, after all, and Draco was only four when he named him) to steal every visiting Death Eater's wand and to magically perform a reversal spell. The next night, Twitchy came to his side in the study, and squeakily told him the bad news that it was none of them.

"None of them," he asked the elf to be sure.

"None, sir."

"Give them back before they notice."

He popped out, and Draco's gut twisted. To think that Hermione's best friend murdered her... Weasley of all people. It was one thing, a Death Eater killing her; Draco would expect no less. It was what they did, they followed orders, and Hermione was the one of the top three Undesirables. But her best friend doing it... Why?

There had to be an explanation. Weasley fawned after Hermione like a stupid puppy. It couldn't have been him. Not to mention that he didn't have the guts it took.

Then who? Hermione would be awaiting his answer. Where she went he didn't know, but she would be there that night. He was sure of it. He decided that a long hot shower was what he needed before having to confront her.

The sun was sinking in the sky, and he had done enough reading for a lifetime. While he was going to hide away in the library far from the Death Eaters downstairs, he had thought to keep himself occupied.

In the bathroom he shed his clothes quickly, thinking of the hot water that waited to beat on his skin. He thought best in the shower, and he would think of how to break the news. He flung the shower doors open, and screamed, flailing hard on his back.

Hermione stood there, arms folded over her chest, a lethal glare printed on her normally kind face. "Draco, what were you thinking?"

"Bloody hell, Hermione, you nearly gave me heart failure."

"You told that poor elf to do your work?"

"He's a houself, that's what they're there for." He stood, and snatched a towel from the rack covering his bottom half. He wasn't shy, but he didn't necessarily like being told off whilst naked.

"You're pathetic."

"Get out, Hermione."

She smiled, that awful look that mocked him. He once jested with her, teasing about her goody-two-shoes ways, and he dared her to act like him once. The conclusion of the frightening smirk she gave him sent chills down his spine. He hated when she did that, and she knew it.

"Make me," she teased uncharacteristically, but there was that fire in her eyes, her hair would have been sparking to life then, if she had been alive.

"Good one," he allowed. "Get out."

She sighed and rolled her milky eyes to the ceiling. She glided right on through him, chilling his skin horribly, like she had dumped ice water over his head. Then, she was gone, through the door.

He hated her. He truly hated Hermione Granger. All those years of attempting to hate her had worked, and now, he hated her even more. The stupid ghost.

Spinning the dial, Draco blasted the water as hot as it would go, and he doused himself in it. He scrubbed all traces of the ghostly webs of coldness from his skin. Like he was getting rid of mudblood germs. Traces of his Hermione, now gone from her life and his. Only, not from his. Even past her death, she was intent on torturing him with her presence. He could do nothing to escape her.

That night when he left her in the winter classroom, he made a silent vow that he would no longer think of her as anything but what was in her veins. She was nothing to him. She was nothing at all. Draco kept to that sacred vow, and he really didn't think of her any other way. However, at night, that was a different story. A nightmare. He dreamt of her and the could-be's. The way her hair fell over her face when she was reading her damn books, the way her hips moved as she walked, the way her shoulders were up to her ears and her arms laden down with those same damned books.

Even in his dreams, he wasn't able to escape her. She was in the strings of his heart, and it hummed with her essence. It was as though in their short time together, she gave him apart of herself, and he was never able to function the same way again. He even treated his houself with more respect because of her. If anything, he hated her for that.

He hated her.

He loved her.

Hermione was the most infuriating girl he had ever met, and she was more infuriating as a ghost. He couldn't run away from her when she could walk through walls. It made the whole prospect of living scary. He had to get rid of her soon, or else, she would hate him more in her death.

Once out of the shower and dressed, he searched for her. He went to the one place that she would most likely be: The library. And indeed, she was there.

Hermione leered over a table next to a plush hunter green chair where he had laid his book. She stared down at it in utmost concentration, as if she was memorizing every facet of its leather binding cover, the golden words in elegant calligraphy. Her hand hovered over it, and then, it lowered, and fell right through. Tears sprung in her sad eyes, and a sob emitted from her parted lips.

"Hermione."

She looked up, and shamefully turned her back to the book. "I... I thought I would..."

Draco didn't know why he did it, but he opened the book to its first page. Without knowing how to comfort her when he couldn't hold her, he left the room. It wasn't the time or the place. Draco simply couldn't talk to a depressed ghost. Hermione was beginning to cry more than Moaning Myrtle. That wasn't the problem, of course, it was that he was a terrible person.

Hermione thought not being able to hold a book was the worst thing in her death. She didn't know that the worst thing would be what last happened to her in her life.

Weasley killed her. Draco couldn't tell her. How could someone break a heart that no longer existed?