Chapter Ten
The celebrations took place in the ruins of Hogwarts behind him, the noise a little muffled, a little broken in his head, but the lake... The lake was placid, unchanged, a deep color before it lightened by the rising sun. It was breaking over the horizon. It was as though he was a schoolboy again, and he was taking a stroll before his classes, to clear his head, to be alone, and he always looked to the tree where Hermione used to sit, her head bent over a book, her fingers idly but lovingly tracing page after page before she turned them.
Nothing was the same, and that applied most especially of Draco Malfoy. If there was anything that was to change a man, it was a ghost of their supposed arch-nemesis, the embodiment of everything they hated. It was that ghost that saved his life. Not just when he was cowering underneath the desk, but his whole life, his direction of it. Because of her, he wanted to do better, and it was sad, because no one would ever know that. They wouldn't see the change in him.
A breeze caught him still. It formed around him and moved on. It was colder than the air, colder than the lake. He turned, curious, and saw Hermione Granger, the embodiment of his change and love, watching him.
"Potter did it," she sighed.
"Yeah."
She stood close to him, her lips a hairs width from his, nearly encasing them in their freezing atmosphere. A beautiful, enticing place that he only wished was warmer to match the inferno that was raging inside of him. Then, she said the words that crashed into him and left him immobile.
"I guess this is goodbye."
Panicked, he gazed into her see-through face. "Why?"
"I must leave. I know how to get there now."
"Get to where?"
"Heaven, I hope."
He thought of pearly gates and St. Peter and the load of rubbish he heard as a child. He knew Hermione was a believer, and he would be too if she was allowed admittance. He never be allowed in, not for his crimes. "You're already an angel."
"Thank you."
He had to ask. He would hate himself forever if he didn't. It was selfish and he was okay with that as long as she was by his side. She was his light, she was more than what kept him up with the moon, she was the girl that made Potter seem righteous. She proved every mudblood tale wrong. She ended the old him and healed the new, and what more could there be?
"Please stay?"
She pacified him, he could see that much. "What would I do here?"
"I dunno. Nick's had about enough of Gryffindor, I'm sure. Take his place."
"I can't. I simply cannot." She laughed softly, gazing at him endearingly that only succeeded in cracking his heart. Suddenly, it was as though it was made out of ice, something that could be melted or destroyed.
There had to be something... Something he could do. "It hurts. Help me. Fix me."
There was no possible way to explain the tortured look on her face, as though she was under the greatest torment of a split mind. "I have to go."
"Don't. Don't go."
She blinked furiously, staring right into his eyes as if what she said next would be the most important thing she'd ever say. "You did great, Draco."
"I didn't do anything."
"You gave me a way to move on. Harry and Ron, and Luna, they would've died without you. I saw it today, you know. Your Patronus. You sent it to help Harry, Dean and Luna. Thank you for that."
Only vaguely did he remember doing that. It seemed like forever ago, not hours. He shouldn't have done what he did, but there was a lot of things he did that he shouldn't have done. At that reminder, he was angry. Angry at her for bringing up his insolence toward who he was raised to be, and for her leaving him.
She was leaving him...
"I don't care about them! You can hate me if you want. You can ramble nonsense out of textbooks you know I'll never read. Stay." He was bargaining. He was begging. He'd do anything. He had already tarnished the great name of Malfoy. What more harm could he possibly do?
"Draco... This wasn't our time. It wasn't supposed to be us." She backed away, her edges softening, becoming more translucent. He was losing her. "We have seconds to sunrise. Officially," she added because she had to.
"Hermione -"
"I love you, Draco." It was said quickly. She was leaving him.
"Don't go."
"You were my best friend." He could see the light of the sun rising above its peak, over the lake, it shining right through her, as if she wasn't even there.
He should have told her he loved her, told her that she was everything good in him, but he did none of those things. Instead he yelled at the top of his lungs that would echo in the mountains beyond, and cause ripples in the lake. "No...No. Granger!" He lunged, his arms reaching out for nothing, and he collided with the ground, the grass pricking his face. There was no ice, there was no Hermione. Winter had vanished and summer returned.
He was alone. In the end, he should have known that she would leave him forever. It was once all he wanted, and it became what he feared most. His worst nightmare transforming in front of his eyes.
Droplets of tears fell to the ground, and he buried himself into the earth there, and replayed the fact in his head over and over. Hermione was gone. Hermione was gone. Granger is dead.
He wished he was too.
There was nothing to hold on to, to keep him from falling, so he fell into the nearest memory, their last stolen moment.
As Malfoy strolled a corridor on the seventh floor, hoping to catch a glimpse of Granger, his arm was grabbed and he stumbled into a softly lit classroom. He stumbled right into someone small and soft. Someone that smelled of books and summer.
"Granger!"
"I need your help."
He had to say no and turn her away. They couldn't be caught together, they worked too hard to be where they were at. Pretending that nothing happened. "I can't help you."
She went on as though she hadn't heard him. "I've tried to practice Occlumency but I can't seem to perfect it."
"I can't help you," he repeated.
"You must. I want to teach you something as well. Harry's been -" She stopped and appeared to be correcting something in her mind. "Harry's been teaching me how to make a Patronus. I'd like to teach you as well."
"That's advanced." He was only surprised that Granger hadn't learned years ago. Sometimes he forgot that the girl didn't know everything.
"Yes, well..."
"This is an exchange?"
"I need to learn to protect myself because I'll be going with Harry. You need to learn because you'll be with..."
That night they set about learning every night until three in the morning. It set its toll on both of them, haggard and worn with worries and studies, to keep up appearances as well. It didn't help that Draco was in a confined space with Hermione for three hours every night with a forbidden temptation to touch her. It's not as though he ever kissed her, nothing more than holding her hand or brushing her hair from her face, but not being able to do those things set a wall between them.
In a month Draco produced his first Patronus. Hermione clapped and squealed watching with delight as a smaller-than-life white smoky dragon curled itself around her. She twirled, following its pattern around her and his heart contracted.
"What were you thinking?"
"Flying in Bristol." It was a lie. He was thinking about her and snowflakes.
"Well, I'm surprised that worked. It has to be something really strong... But that's brilliant, Malfoy!"
"What's yours," he asked as the dragon faded.
"An otter."
"May I see it?"
She smiled sadly. "It's a problem for me, really."
He rose a brow, not believing her one bit. "There's a spell too difficult for Granger?"
"I have a lot of happy memories, but it has to be more than happiness. It has to elate you, fill you up." She flopped in a chair. "I have worries. Harry and Ron. Umbridge and her stupid rules!" She bent her face into her hands.
"It's one memory, Granger. Nothing from your childhood?"
She looked up, dirt brown eyes pooled. "My parents travel. I've been nearly everywhere in the world, Malfoy, because my parents think that running from martial issues is the best way to cope. It's why I spend every holiday possible with Ron. It's... Difficult there. The yelling."
"When you conjure your Patronus, what is it that you think of?"
She drew her sleeve over her face, sniffed, and stood. "Occlumency now."
"Hermione."
"I've been practicing the method. I don't think it will be a problem."
Mentally he gathered himself. Penetrating someone else's mind he had no qualms about. Granger, on the other hand, was someone he felt unprepared to handle. He already felt compassion for her jagged and pathetic childhood. What would he feel when he was experiencing them himself?
"Legilimens."
Hermione curled in a ball in her bed crying as a man and woman screamed disparaging comments at each other. In her distress a flowered box beside her bed began playing tinkling noise and books began flying off their shelves, flapping around her.
Hermione meeting Dumbledore in her quaint lounge of oranges and dark woods. She sat straight, her bronze bushy head held high asking too many questions but never once baffling the old man.
Hermione gazing up at Hogwarts for the first time in the rocky boat. Her eyes were wide, entranced and excited.
Hermione crying alone in a bathroom, the slew of insults drowning her better than her salty tears.
Hermione in the library a dozen times to read and escape.
Hermione performing complicated spells in her bed at the girls dormitory.
Hermione slapping him, Potter and Weasley grappling to hold her back, his own face a mask of horror and shock.
Hermione smiling after slapping him, his back retreating down into the dungeons.
Hermione worrying over his injuries with the oversized bird.
Hermione laughing at a joke Weasley told.
Hermione laughing with Potter outside of the library.
Hermione's Patronus, an otter circling her head as her thoughts circled him.
Draco gasped as he exited her mind, falling back into a desk. He gripped its sides as the object of his deepest affection was on the floor, tears pouring.
He ran out of the room. He couldn't comfort her or bear her tears. It was too late to stay away from Hermione Granger, and that was exactly why he had to stay away. If he loved her anymore than he already did, his insides would surely suffer combustion.
"Are you looking for Druns?"
Draco peered up and saw bare feet, rolled up slacks, and a flowery muggle blouse, and straggly dirty bond hair that was wrapped around a corked necklace. Finally, he met the protuberant silver blue eyes of Luna, her wand behind her ear.
"Would you like help?"
He shook his head, and got to his feet. It was the most difficult thing he ever had to do, to get up after Hermione left. Where she left to he could only guess, but wherever she was was too good for him.
"What do you want, Lovegood?"
"I saw you wandering out here. It is nice. We should all eat out here."
He walked past her, but she kept his stride annoyingly.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For your Patronus. It was enchanting." Luna then took his hand, wrapping it in hers. The simple act stopped him in his steps, and he looked down at her questioningly. He wanted to snatch out of her hold, but it was the only thing holding him there.
"You won't be alone." She nodded, as if he had said something worth noting, and she watched the clouds in the sky moving by and returned to him. "I'll be your friend."
His mind was swimming.
"I believe Hermione would be pleased. Come, I'll share my pumpkin pie. It's really rather good."
The promise of food did nothing to ease his loss, but she did. Luna and her airy presence calmed him just like those nights in Malfoy Manor. So he followed her without knowing what else to do, how else to begin his life, but Luna would know.
The sun took his Hermione away, and moon and rain would not give her back. If he thought of stealing the stars, well, Hermione was Hermione, and if he wanted to see her again, then he would keep them in the sky where they belonged. Where she belonged.
A/N: There's an epilogue.
I added the memory of the Patronus in this chapter because when someone suffers a loss, they do feel lost, and I imagined Draco grappling for anything steady, so he went for the sweetest memory filled with sweet memories in of itself. I wanted to show that Draco learned strength from her, even if he didn't feel his strongest. That in an unconscious move, he decided to remember a good memory.
Why did I not place him saving Harry, Luna and Dean in the previous chapter? Because it was hours before anything else interesting happened.