"Granger."
"Granger?"
"Granger! Wake up!"
Hermione found herself waking up on a musty four-poster bed with one leg missing, and she was being prodded by a vaguely familiar blond-haired boy who upheld a solemn expression as he watched her. "Gahhh...ohhh...er...what's...'appening..." she murmured, feeling around blindly for whoever called her earlier.
Suddenly, she seemed to come back to her senses, jolting upright, and shouting, "Where am I?!" That exclamation only resulted in a shock of pain through her arm, which she noticed was propped up in some sort of makeshift splint.
"Shrieking Shack." Draco said, adjusting the split to her arm.
"Draco?" she looked around the room suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"
He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. "Don't you remember? I-"
"Oh, Merlin...where's RON AND HARRY?!" she shouted, ripping off the splint, and getting out of bed furiously.
"Hermione! Listen, we don't have much time. I don't know where Ron and Harry are, and I honestly don't care at this point. Now, get back in that bed, and then we can-"
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE! FOR GODRIC'S SAKE, YOU SHOULD AT LEAST-"
"FOR ONCE, JUST SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH!" Draco bellowed, resisting the urge to shake her violently until she grasped the severity of the situation. Instead, he pointed vehemently at her left arm, where the 'Mudblood' scar was still visible. "I was out there saving your life, that's what! Get your arse back in that bed, put that damn splint back on, and wait for a godddamn explanation!"
Hermione looked at her arm, and then to Draco, and then she opened and closed her mouth wordlessly, as her realization finally began to sink in. "So...it's true..." she mumbled, sitting back on the bed in defeat.
He raised an eyebrow, and began to fumble with the splint, still slightly angered by her oblivious disposition from before. "What's true?"
"That it wasn't all just a dream..." she flinched as he positioned it on her arm.
Draco paled, thinking back on the events prior to their conversation. 'Does she really not remember...' he thought to himself. "Well, you've only been unconscious for a couple hours, if that helps any." he said. "What did you dream about?"
"It was more of a nightmare, really...and I suppose you already know about..." she pointed to her arm warily, and he nodded. "But then...right when she was about to use the Cruciatus Curse on me...I saw your face... And...and then you were almost about to..." Hermione glanced at her arm again timidly. "And I lost hope for a moment...I sort of trusted you, you know..." He smirked at this marginal confession. "And then you...you kind of...fell on top of me...and then all I can remember is this pain in my side...and I suppose you apparated, since we ended up here..."
He nodded encouragingly. "Is that it?"
Hermione shook her head carefully, as if she were trying to put her next recollection to words. "N-no..." she said. "I also remember a dragon."
Draco froze. "A dragon?"
She nodded. "It was there, with us in...Hogsmeade, I think...and it...it kind of...led us here..." She turned to him abruptly. "Draco, can you produce a Patronus?"
A sudden shadow eclipsed Draco's face, and he avoided her eyes swiftly. "I think that's enough talking for today, Hermione. I don't know how long we can stay here, but for now you need your rest." He began to guide her back down on the pillow.
"I want to know what happened!" she protested, refusing his efforts, and instead sitting back up on the bed. "And you didn't answer my question!"
"No." said Draco stonily. "I can't."
She looked astounded. "Wait, but-"
"Go to sleep, Hermione."
"But if you'd just-"
"Go to sleep, Hermione."
"No, I want an explanation for-"
"Granger, if you don't piss off, I'll silence you." He said, moving off the bed.
"But this isn't fair! I deserve to know!"
He ignored her, instead walking around the room, and looking through the windows cautiously. He smirked to himself, as her objections faded away into the quiet. Looking back at her for a moment, he walked out the door of the shack, a million apprehensions flying through his mind.
"Hermione, Hermione...please don't be..."
He felt himself go cold, and everything around him became a blur, as they sucked the life out of everything around him. All he could feel was the light evading him leisurely, and the darkness taking over its reign. Almost empty he was, holding Hermione in his bleeding hands. He could barely feel her against him, but he could tell she was suffering, shivering intensely, her skin ice cold despite the warm weather. She turned to him, eyes unseeing, yet she uttered his name, delicately, weakly. Draco wanted to collapse against her, surrender to the cold, let the darkness take him hostage. But he embedded the thought in his mind that he needed to get out. Hermione was deteriorating in strength before his eyes.
He was her only hope.
He struggled to think of blissful thoughts, as his soul seemed to drag his memories along with the darkness. He couldn't fail Hermione, he knew; but he couldn't think. She said his name again, a laboring whisper. He had to do it, for Hermione, for whatever happening to be good. He had to. He imagined of what survival could be like, after he'd cast his silver Patronus across the skies, invincible. Hermione would wrap her arms around him, and press her sweet lips to his once again. He could feel her warmth as she hugged him to her, laughing his name. She was never his, but he could pretend. He could always pretend.
"Expecto Patronum!" he shouted, holding her to him for dear life. "Expecto Patronum!"
Nothing happened, and he began to lose all hope again. But then he heard her voice in his head again, dripping with the tender affection that is dear. "Draco." He raised his wand. "Draco, I love you." No she doesn't. Another voice said in his mind. She'll never love you. She'll love anyone but you. Who are you? Some coward that bullied her half her life? Ha! Don't get your hopes up, Draco... He lost grip of his wand, tears clouding his already distorted vision. "Draco! Listen to me!" she said again. "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you...I love you...I...and...love...and...you..."
"Expecto Patronum!" he said, surprised when a spark erupted from his wand, which he held tighter in his hands. "Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patr-" Suddenly, something else rose from his wand. The silver sparks became a figure, slowly building itself up in the air. It floated, higher, and began to circle around them, gradually becoming a snake, then a lizard, and then...a dragon. He stumbled backwards, still holding his wand and Hermione for dear life. The dragon looked at him for a moment, its eyes silvery orbs, and it turned back to the dementors, which were creeping closer. And it breathed fire, a silvery kind of fire. And the dementors were blasted away, as the dragon's fire resounded again, and again, and again...
Draco glanced at the dragon for just a moment, and then grabbed Hermione and ran. He saw a small shack, dimly in his torpor. He struggled to open the door, and then he pushed her inside. "Hermione..." he managed to say, closing it behind them.
She opened her eyes once, and then she collapsed once again in his arms. He saw the fire glowing in them for just a second...and that solaced him...
Author's Note- *whew* Well, that awkward bit is over! Anyone get the Avett Brothers reference? ;)