A/n- Long wait, sorry! I hate to keep saying that it's because of homework… but it's because of homework. Such a cop out!

Disclaimer: By now you should know the answer to this question.

Summary: The breakdown.


Jackknifed


Harry woke with a crick in his neck, his head lying partly on his pillow and partly against the rock hard headboard.

For a moment, he wasn't quite sure why he was still in his cloths, shoes… glasses.

Why the Marauder's Map was perched precariously, blank, on his bedside table.

Harry ran a hand through his hair and looked out the curtained window.

The sun shown down, hard packed snow void of a fresh layer of powder. The light bounded into the room, splashing over Ron's bed. Harry watched the boy for a few moments before getting up, readjusting his sweater, and grabbing the blank map.

"Ugh." He groaned, murmuring quietly. "What time is it?"

" Six o'clock in the morning, dear!" A wheezing voice from an old mirror in the corner blurted lazily.

Harry snorted at it.

Six o'clock on a Sunday morning, what was he thinking?

He rubbed his eyes blearily.

Slowly, Harry reached for the dormitory door handle, twisting it and pulling open the squeaky wood with barely an audible sound. He closed it behind him, tapping the lock against the frame rather loudly by mistake.

Harry's shoes made hollow sounds all the way down the steps to the Common Room where he sat comfortably in front of the fire, chin resting in his palm, dozing, thinking.

.o.o.o.o.

Hermione pulled on her knee socks, a jumpy little excitement bursting forth from her cold fingers to rest comfortably in a beamy smile.

She was going to meet Draco that morning.

She was going to meet Draco.

She was going to meet-

The smile widened upon her lips.

They would rendezvous at the Owlry then steal down to the Kitchens to have an early morning breakfast of honeyed milk and toast.

Hermione glanced up at the clock hanging over the dormitory doorway, its golden pendulum swinging back and forth lethargically.

Ten after six.

Perfect.

Cautiously, she made her way down to the Common Room.

A pang of guilt seeped through her at the sight of Harry asleep on one of the poufs.

Had he been waiting all night for her to return? She had come in late… but she hadn't seen him there.

It was so wrong, deceiving them like this… but what else was she to do? If they every found out… it would be her and Draco's murder as the consequence.

Crookshanks blinked away from the hearth rug, purring and mewing loudly.

"Shh." Hermione pleaded softy. "Shh."

But the cat had jumped up onto the table next to where Harry was dozing.

Hermione bolted towards the portrait hole.

"What!" A surprised voice said behind her. "Ron? Oh… Hermione?" Something in his voice made the girl stop.

"Yea, Harry?" She tried to make it sound even, inconspicuous.

"Where are you going?" The boy slowly got up from his chair with his back to her, not a trace of sleep in his voice.

False sweetness…

There was a false sweetness in his voice…

Hermione noted how similar his words and hers sounded.

Like a lie.

Hermione's blood ran a sudden chill, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.

He knew.

"Harry… Harry," She started.

But Harry was already up, looking into the fire, hands dropped by his sides, clenching first tightly then loosely.

Hermione was riveted to the spot.

"Don't go."

"What?" Hermione choked out.

He was being civil?

"Just don't go, Hermione." Harry turned, a small smile granted to her as he rounded the chairs to stand in front of her a few paces.

Hermione laughed.

"It's not that simple, Harry."

His face darkened.

"Of course it is, Hermione. Don't go and just forget about it… I'll forget about it."

"I can't do that Harry." Hermione clutched her book bag to her, as if it would be some kind of protection.

"Yes you can." He said, forcefully, taking a step towards her. "I don't want you to get hurt, Hermione. He will hurt you. It's Malfoy!"

Hermione shook her head.

"No."

It was such a small word.

Harry's eyes became wide, his body thrust slightly forward.

"Hermione!"

"Stop Harry…"

"No, I won't stop. He's a no good Slytherin and you know it. He's using you, Hermione, that's all he's doing and when he's done he'll throw you away. You're not like him, he knows it, you know it, and whatever he says to you won't change that fact!" He was getting desperate, Hermione could tell, but she still couldn't look at him. Tears leaking out from her eyes splashed down onto her front. "You're a Gryffindor, Hermione. He's Slytherin. It can't work, it won't work. What will his kin say about it? You'll be killed by those Deatheaters, killed! Is he worth that, Hermione? Is he worth that?"

"Yes!"

Harry stopped short, his mouth open, eyes wide.

Hermione let out a choking sob.

"How did you know?" She spoke finally, quietly, the silence around her deafening.

Harry said nothing but reached over the chair he had been sitting at, grabbing the parchment off the seat harshly. He stalked over to Hermione and shoved it in her arms.

Seeing the blank map made Hermione choke out another sob.

Looking up into his green eyes, Hermione saw only a twinge of that fierce anger. Nearly the whole of his vision fell on her with a pleading look of pity.

Hermione held tighter to the map, turned her shoulder slightly, and then bolted away from him.

Harry didn't try and stop her, the portrait hold banging shut.

He let out a long sigh.

"Mate?"

He turned to see Ron blinking down at him from atop the stairs, his night shirt sitting askew on his shoulders.

"Uh?" Harry breathed.

"I heard voices, you all right?"

Harry opened his mouth but slowly closed it.

Was he going to tell?

Just like that?

It was Hermione.

"… no, Ron, sorry. Must have been your imagination."

The boy shrugged and turned around to stumble back to bed.

Harry buried his face in his hands.

.o.o.o.o.

Draco lounged against the Owlry's stone, a clear, dry patch of ground under him, the snow magiked away.

His eyes were closed and he breathed in a deep draught of morning air.

Fresh.

A small noise made him raise his head, open one eye.

Looking down over his right arm he saw Hermione running up the stone steps, parchment clutched in her hands, her bag swinging over one arm- having fallen off her shoulder.

Draco's brows knit.

Was she crying?

He slowly sat up and uncrossed his legs, leaning forward.

Before he could say a word, she flung herself into his arms, crumpling down onto the ground, her body against his, sobbing into his school shirt.

"Granger…" He breathed, but she continued to cry, Draco's arms clasping her shoulders. "Granger, what's wrong? Granger… Granger…Hermione?"

Slowly she pulled herself off him and he could see her red eyes, her frail body shaken, her distresses.

"What happened?" He whispered, a hand brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. His pale eyes searched hers.

"They know, Draco, oh God." She sucked in her breath.

The color drained from Malfoy's pale face.

"What?"

His worst fear… this wasn't happening… this couldn't happen.

"It's this!" She pushed the paper into his arms and Draco took it from her shaking hands, looking at it as if she were crazy.

"Hermione!"

"I-I solemnly swear I am up- up to no good."

Draco's breath caught in his lungs as he watched life bloom under his fingers.

"Where did you get this?

"Harry…"

"He knows?"

Could she see the way his hands shook?

Hermione nodded and Draco became silent, turning the map over and over in his hands.

"The weasel too?"

"I don't think so…oh God, Draco. What are we going to do?"

"What can we do?" He looked at her shocked face, his own ridden with a sad and guilty look. Slowly, he pulled her to him, his hands grasping her arms.

She looked so distraught.

Distraught yet… angelic.

How was that?

"It's my fault." She was murmuring. "Would it matter, Draco?"

The boy shook his head slowly, barely hearing her.

It couldn't end like this…

Hermione continued to babble, fresh tears erupting in her eyes. "If you weren't so pure!? If I wasn't so dirty?! Would it matter?! To them?! To you?!"

Draco looked at her sharply, incredulously, and snapped his hands out to grab her face roughly, pulling her close, closer then she had ever been to him. Her eyes darted over his pale face.

Malfoy's heart pounded in his ears.

"Don't say that, Hermione. Never say that. You are more pure then any pure blood." He hands shook, holding her like that.

Hermione hiccoughed.

Tell her. Draco pleaded with himself.

She was so close.

Tell her.

Her eyes, clear from crying, gazed into his.

Tell her you love her.

"Hermione… remember, long ago- what seems like so long ago- you told me why you had befriended me? Why you thought we were meant to meet, denounce our Houses, our teachings, and become… this?" Hermione nodded, slowly. "You told me why but I never said a word. My reasons were so different, Hermione…"

His grip on her loosened.

"I met you and from that moment, when we were barely eleven, I wanted you. I wanted to possess you but I couldn't even touch you. I hated you and I wanted so badly for that hate to own every fiber of your being. I tortured Potter and Weasel but I couldn't get under your skin…"

For a fleeting moment Hermione thought of instances when that wasn't completely true.

"I wanted that, that evil to seep into your blood and destroy who you were. I didn't understand it, Hermione. You were a muggleborn, an object, a toy I could not have. But I still wanted it. Now…I don't think it's that simple anymore…"

Hermione was crying again.

"I realized soon after we drank those sweet drinks of Butterbeer together, that I couldn't possess you against your will, so I stopped trying…and then... you opened to me. You gave your trust and your friendship to me. I now possess that, but not you, Hermione; I know that now and accept it without greed or malice. I can't ever control you. Potter can't ever control you. Weasel can't ever control you. You are who you are, Hermione. I can't tell you who you are and they can't tell you who to befriend, who to like, who to love.

Hermione's face pained.

"Draco, I lo-"

But he put a finger to her lips, looking away and thrusting a hand into his pocket.

Slowly, he brought out his pocketknife, the thing that had started the whole affair. With a dull noise his thumb ran over the green varnish and flicked the blade up and open.

The metal no longer glittered evilly up at them, but refracted the light of the pitch whiteness around the two, rebounding off the snow and blinding their eyes with something silvery… something akin to a thin thread of terrible hope.

His pale eyes glanced up at Hermione's as he brought the blade up to his hand.

The mark made many months before had turned pink, scar like. But the wound reopened as Draco brought the blade lightly again his skin, paper cut like, yet beads of blood welled on the surface. Tentatively, he cupped Hermione's hand in the fingers of his cut hand, bringing the blade closer.

She never said a word as an identical little line of red appeared on her skin.

"I do not regret a single action I've taken." He whispered, his voice quiet, the usual drawl missing from his speech.

"Nor do I." Hermione returned, a small smile on her tear streaked face.

They clasped their hands together, crimson blood mingling. The pureblood and the muggleborn, together reaching an intimate level that before would never have been possible.

Draco drew Hermione to him in a half hug, her face buried in his shoulder.

He felt like crying, but it wouldn't come.

"Go back to your House." He whispered to her. "Tend to your friendships…"

"I will meet you-"

"No, Hermione." Draco smiled bitterly. "If we can't do this." He pulled away to look at her. "If this won't work, then I won't force it. Your friends, your loyalties, they are more important then anything any Slytherin could give to you. Anything I could give you."

His whole body ached as Hermione pulled away, standing, looking down at her smeared hand. She nodded slowly.

She knew, even if there was to be something… how could it work?

Even if they both wanted it.

How could it.

"I… Draco…" Hermione looked at him as her voice died away.

He simply nodded.

Hermione nodded too, turning, heaving her book bag back upon her shoulder, folding the map neatly into a little square. Slowly, she started walking down the Owlry steps.

Draco listened to her footfalls; slow at first, yet they broke into a run before she reached the bottom.

Looking up at the risen sun in the sky, Draco tried to smile.

It was for the best.

Wasn't it?

And then the tears came.


A/n- Again, sorry for the wait, hope the long chapter was worth it. Two more to go! Excited much?!?!

REVIEW! The fic is almost over, this is one of your last chances! REVIEW!