He stared at Hermione until he thought he saw her go limp and then backed away undetected from the group and ran out. He didn't look back until he reached the gates where he turned to look at the grand castle. The castle where he had heard 'the end is near' followed in moments by him being told Hermione would not survive. No, the castle was really not so grand. How many other good people died there today? How many bad? Did the difference matter when it was a life lost? Not to him it didn't, not now. Not when his Granger had died too.

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Chapter 16-Regret

Lucius looked back at Hermione's death with regret. If only he had let her say "I love you" but he had been to scared to hear words that had only ever been said to him by is son when the boy was little, before he began acting like a Malfoy, like a pureblood. He regretted her never knowing how much she meant to him, his life, his happiness, his soul. He finally truly regretted the life he led before realizing Voldemort was nothing but a wizard gone bad.

Just the memory "I love you" coming from her perfect lips was too much to ask now. He had never heard those words, they weren't in his memory. They were nothing to remember, they had never been. And he regretted that.

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Malfoy looked hatefully at the bottle of fire whiskey, deciding whether to start binging or not, deciding if the alcohol would help with the pain. Past experience told him it wouldn't. With a sigh he swept it off the table and listened to it break and the splatter. He stood and made his way to his living room, ignoring the shards of glass everywhere, and plopped down on the couch.

It had been a month and a half now and he was tired. Tired of his depression, tired of living, but mostly, tired of not ever seeing her and knowing he never would. He hated the feeling that nothing would help him. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

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During the first two days Remus and Sirius had come to try to consol him but he had slammed the door in their face after they only managed to say his name. After that he had doubled his wards, still leaving a hole for Hermione as if she was just at school and would come back. He had laughed bitterly when he had left that hole, as if he was trying to convince himself she wasn't really gone.

Now he wished he was gone too. Maybe he could be. He pulled out his wand and looked at it as if it were some rare knife. He had never heard of any wizard offing himself with Avada Kedavra and wondered if it actually would work self inflicted. He raised his wand to point it at himself and opened his mouth, but before anything came out there was a knock on the door.

"Damn it." He mumbled instead and got up.

He unlocked the door with several taps of his wand then jerked it opened. He looked out into the face of a very alive Hermione.

****The End****

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Thanks for reading!! If enough of my readers request it, I will post an epilogue—Lemme know!!!