Diclaimer: Please see previous chapters.

A/N: First, I have to really thank you yet again for your marvelous reviews. That was the best response yet. Now, I have to warn you.

Warning: Dark themes ahead.

Chapter 29: Nothing to Be Frightened Of

Choking. That's what it felt like. Like he had no air and couldn't break the surface. Like the spell he had taught Granger where thought there was no water, it was pressing in upon your lungs. That's must be what was happening; he was drowning.

He told himself it was not happening, because of course it couldn't be. Because his mother was one of those few select people in one's life one cannot fathom loosing, he told himself it was impossible for her to be gone. Someone else easily, but not her. She had always been there, so he had been quite sure she always would be. Then, just like that, she wasn't and would never be again. Never again.

"Mother," he whispered into the emptiness of his room as he sobbed like a child.

He reminded himself of the mad man who whispered for his "rare and radiant maiden" in that poem Hermione had read. That was what his mother had been, a rare and radiant maiden. He now understood now the man's cries, feeble hopes, despair. And what had the raven told him when he asked if he was to see her again? What had he said?

"Nevermore."

No! It just could not happen, but it was already done. There was nothing he could do to save her though, Merlin's beard, he would do anything if he could. Just anything. He should have been there, he berated himself for the hundredth time, not gallivanting with that mudblood. He wondered now, tried to calculate in his head the numbers of days, hours he had spent with his mother recently. Their last outing he had been so concentrated on that foul girl they had barely had a moment's peace together. And today, Christmas Eve, he had been out giving Granger her last day on earth, only to ruin everything by telling her the truth. He had failed his family.

He was supposed to be their salvation, sacrificing his own happiness to secure their well being. Such selflessness, his mother had told him, would make him a man. He had wanted so badly to become a man, but now he could not remember why. Is this what a man was? This pain, was that what being a man felt like? Resposible for so much.

He was supposed to make Granger believe he was falling for her, lulling he into a false sense of secuirty so the ever turning wheel of her sharp mind would not deduce their real intentions. That alone had been challenging enough, for her saw her wanting to trust him, believing he could be saved from those she viewed as evil. It made him sick, but he pittied her as well. That's when he had begun to leave her hints, unintensionally at first. He would be doing a wonderful job and suddenly remember what that menat- that she trusted him and he would have to kill her. Without reason he had become angry and taken that anger out of her. Still, she did not see it. Perhaps even her astute mind could not fathom such betrayal. Perhaps she truly never saw it coming.

As if that wasn't enough, making her believe he liked her, he was also supposed to seduce Granger, make her fall for him. If Voldemort was to fail, they would need her loyalty. But this had proved to be an even harder task, for Granger was not like others girls and the more he discovered about her oddity, the more surious and fascinated he grew. Frustrated his first attempts at this were pathetic to put it nicely, but his fasination made him more determined. Again, he had shwed her his bad side, tried to scare her away, but she was as determined him. It was a challenge, a game. All this time he had been playing, and now people were going to die.

Wrong, people already had died. The one person he could never bare to hurt. The one person who had known the truth. His mother and Draco could not help but blame himself. If he had been in control of his emotions, had he been obeying his orders, he would have been with his mother. He should have been with his family-that's where he belonged. It was the only place he belonged.

Unable to hold this burden alone any longer, he rose. With feet and a heart of lead, he drug himself to his father's study and knocked warily. His father called him in. The man was still drinking, pacing too by the looks of it. His eyes were bloodshot. Taking a deep breath, Draco made his confession.

"I'm sorry I was not there, Father. I should have been there."

"No, I'm glad you weren't here. It was ugly."

"Here, father?" Draco shook his head, certain he must have misheard. She had been killed in battle, had she not?

"Yes. The Dark Lord." His father said. Draco shivered.

"Your mother," he paused there, saying the word with cruel mockery, "got herself killed. Executed. Like a common criminal." He rambled drunkenly, glaring vehemently at the red, crackling embers of the fireplace. Seized by sudden fury, the man staggered unsteadily as he violently threw his glass into the fire, which flared and hissed indignantly. "I told her to be quiet!" he roared, his back to his son. "But SHE just couldn't shut her mouth!" he spat hatefully, and then grew quiet, his back trembling with withheld sobs as he clutched tightly to his desk.

"Wh-what did she say?" stammered Draco tentatively, eyes on the fire. He had asked the question now. He had known he would not be able to live not knowing, but could he live with answer?

"'Wait-'she said. And that's all she said. He proposed giving Granger to your cousins as we wouldn't need her after tonight and she said wait. Wait." he whispered again.

"And he killed her?" Draco asked also in a hush, horrorstruck. "Just like that?"

Lucius nodded at him, his face half turned towards Draco now. He half whispered, truly perplexed, "I don't understand. For a stupid mudblood…"

His eyes were glistening, and he began to shake oddly. Was he having some sort of fit? No, Draco realized eyes widening in fear. He was laughing, laughing madly.

"Like, like a dog." Hsi father cackled drunkenly, dryly. It frightened Draco to the core. He had never seen his father act like this. "Like a DOG!" he shouted, slapping his thigh and looking expectantly at his son, as if it were a joke Draco did not get. He clutched his sides rolling with laughter even as the tears poured down his face. Draco turned and left his father.

As he walked the familiar steps back up to his room, he could not help but think that he had lost everything. His mother was dead, his father gone, and in the morning his only friend would be gone from his life forever, for surely Hermione would leave. She was a smart witch, practical. She would find a way and she would escape. She was probably fleeing already. What reason had she to stay after had had betrayed her so? Regardless, tomorrow when he woke he would be utterly alone. She had been right, of course. He had lost everything. Draco Malfoy now understood the Dark Lord's cruelty and the consequences of the life he had chosen, but it was too late. He had already chosen it, or it chose him. Destiny, some would call it, those hopeful fools that think everything happens for a reason. What reason cold their possibly be? What could justify these things that had happened? Sacrifice for a greater good? The consequences of sin?

But his mother…what had she done? Uttered a single word. A single word that had concerned the Dark Lord, a single word that was quickly made her last action on earth. He did not need to question what his father would always wonder: why had she said wait. He knew. She had said it for the same reason she had done everything in her life, for him; for her son, because she loved him.

"Mother?" he had asked as she put him to bed one night when he was only ten, feeling dreadfully apprehensive of the sorting ceremony he was to face soon.

"Will you still love me if I get sorted into Gryffindor?"

She shushed him and drew the covers up, doubtlessly wishing to ignore such musings, but the fear evident in his face made her answer him with a whisper and a smile. "Yes, darling. I will love you even if you are in Gryffindor. But you will not be. You must think very hard when you go up there about young Casus Malfoy, very hard Draco, and the hat will feel your love and your pride in your family before it is fully sat on your head. He will put you in Sltyherin then, where you belong."

Draco had smiled at his mother, feeling better. She had been right too, of course. As she doused the light he had suddenly been seized by a wild notion and had to ask her. He was not afraid to ask his mother anything. "Mother!"

"Yes, little one?"

"What if I were a filthy mudblood?"

"Language Draco, you are a young gentleman." she lightly rebuffed.

"Sorry," he smiled into the darkness. "I mean muggle-born."

A hand took his and she whispered very quietly so no one and nothing overheard her, "Even if you were a squib or a muggle-born, I would love you my son." Draco had fallen asleep then, because he felt safe. He felt that as long as his mother was around, he would be loved and protected no after what. He had always needed her reassurances as a child, been such a coward without them. Hell he was a child now! And a coward to boot! After all she had done for him, now she had died for him as well. Why? He thought this heart may literally shatter. He could feel its sharp pieces inside him now.

She had said wait because she had known, even before he did, what he would do. She had seen it in him before anyone else could spot it, because he had always known him so well. Draco was not a good liar and to his mother it was all the more obvious that he had begun to fall for a mud-blood. And what was worse, she had understood. She had to have, because she had told him all those years ago when she had said that she would love him even with impure blood. She had known such love could exist.

"Oh but mother," he said to his empty room. "Such love could never survive."

His anger burst from him in manifestation of power, breaking the vase on his bedside table, toppling the tea tray. Then with his hands he grabbed things sitting on his table and threw them into the fire. Next, he went for his bed curtains, pulling the thick fabric with all his might until he heard that gratifying rip. He kicked the other inn table over, punched his wireless. He was sweating, bleeding, panting when he stopped. In his own misery, Draco lay on his bed and wept until a tiny hand gently touched his back. His heart leapt and he jerked around, but it was only the house elf, nursing his wounds.

"Oh poor master Malfoy." She said softly, crying herself. He brushed her off.

"Let them alone. They will heal."

"Yes, sir."

"Ninny,"

"Yes sir?"

"Bring me Knobby."

"Knobby sir?"

"Yes, right away."

"Yes sir!"

The elf was before him in a matter of seconds. "Leave us." He instructed the older one. She did so with an obedient bow of the head and a prompt snap into thin air.

"Young master called?"

"Yes, Knobby. I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask Knobby something Sir?" the elf asked, puzzled.

"Yes. You are aware Knobby, are you not, that certain elf passages of the manor lead to the outside?"

"Of course sir."

"And you are also aware that one need only walk through the garden as to not be chased by the hounds?"

"Yes Sir. Knobby knows." The elf peered at him wonderingly.

"Are you furthermore quite clear that your assignment to Miss Granger demands that you do anything and everything within your power and her wishes to secure her safety at all times."

The elf's eyes widened to a remarkable size.

"Do you recall that instruction by your master, Knobby?"

"Yes sir." The elf nodded.

"Good." He told her solidly, and then he laid back down on his bed, exhausted. "Good." He repeated. The elf was gone and soon he was asleep, plagued by dream where his mother's ghost appeared to him like the ghost of Jacob Marley. He was then visited by three spirits. One was Knobby who showed him happy Christmases from his past, where his mother smiled at him excitedly unwrapping his gifts. He tired to catch her, touch her, but she turned to fairy dust and disappeared in a puff of white smoke.

Then Harry Potter came and showed him Christmas as it was now: the ministry bending its will to the Dark Lord; his drunken father kneeling at the hearth and drinking fire as he smiled and wept saying "like a dog, like a dog" and barking madly; the Order lamenting their defeat rather than celebrating his mother's death; and then there was Hermione dying. Yes, he could see it clearly. She was lying on the snow covered ground in her red dress crying.

"I'm dying Draco." She told him. "For us. I'll be dead tomorrow but everything will be fine then. Smile." She said sweetly, confused at his angry tears. "Aren't you happy? I thought you would be happy."

"No," he wanted to tell her. "Not happy. Why would I be happy?"

"You killed me." She laughed incredulously, and then died. Hermione turned into his mother and he tried to scream, tried to scream but couldn't. He shoved Potter who called him a ferret and left him alone, all alone in the snow crying for his mother.

But then the third spirit had come and it was the Dark Lord. He was hideous to look upon and smiling widely as he showed Draco the world he would create. People were starving, mere skeletons, while others ate richly. Screams and filth filled the chilly air. The two walked through mist as Voldemort talked to him whispering secrets, of how he used to be one man but now he was seven and could be whole. When they came to ocean Draco stopped at the edge of the freezing water, but the Dark Lord walked upon the water with a sick smile. He stood on the sea though it was black and tumultuous; he stood on it like land, and shouted his own praises and swore he was back. He was back. Someone screamed.

Draco awoke in a cold sweat. How much of what had happened was real? Before everything could come rushing back, his door flung open. His aunt Bellatrix stood in his doorway, eyes wild. She was upon him before he could grab his wand. She wrapped her hands around his neck, but was not strangling him. No, she was hugging him, clutching him tightly, dearly and kissing his head as she rocked backwards and forwards on his bed. Could this be the dream holding him still?

His father, hung over and startled from his bed, suddenly appeared in his door. "What in the devil is going on here?" he demanded to know, clutching his skull and eyeing his sister-in-law and son very oddly.

Draco looked questioningly at his aunt wondering exactly that. "Happy Christmas!" she giggled. "Draco has given me the most wonderful present."

"I have?" he asked, still confused. His father looked on between baffled and concerned.

"Yes and its wonderful. I doubted you had it in you. I thought you would back out, run from you duties. But look at you, avenging your mum. I'm proud of you."

"What is she talking about Draco?" Lucius asked. Draco pried himself from the woman, wanting to ask the same thing, but hesitating slightly.

"He couldn't wait to do it, you see? He couldn't wait until morning. I thought he'd gone soft, but he killed her in the night."

"Who?" asked Lucius dumbly, but Draco had already come to that conclusion.

"The mudblood." Bella sniggered. Good then. Hermione had indeed escaped undetected. She was safe. He tried to be happy. He had thought he would be happy. He felt nothing.

"Is this true Draco?" his father asked. He could not answer, only nod.

"Come and lookie!" Bella exclaimed like a child on Christmas morning. Then again, he recalled, it was Christmas morning. "She's all cold and stiff."

"What?" Draco faltered. His father raised an eyebrow but said nothing, following the jubilant, now cackling, sister of his slain wife to the adjacent room. Draco did as well.

She had done well. Things were strewn about in a haphazard fashion. Some things were even broken or singed by what may have been spells. It looked as though there had been a struggle, a duel perhaps. Clever Hermione, he thought. Even the infamous diary was left behind. Open to last page it read: "I must get out!"

Something was amiss though he did not spot it right away, not until he saw his aunt pointing at it directly, laughing gleefully and stopping a foot. There, tangled grotesquely in the bedding that had fallen half onto the floor, was a pale lifeless body. Hermione.

Lucius' crisp but delighted tone addressed the room now filling with people. "Notify our master immediately," he told Bella, who was gone in an instant. "There will be no need for a ceremony. Touch nothing. The Dark Lord will want to inspect the body." He told the people gasping and murmuring behind him. Placing a hand on Draco's shoulder he said, "I'll send word to Severus immediately. We'll want to let the Order know their precious girl is dead. Harry will want to know, will he not? Let us send a picture and a lock of her hair, with a note saying Happy Christmas."

"And the ring. Then they will know for sure."

"No!" he snapped, then calmed. "The ring stays. If you wish to convince them, send them a little something more…personal."

Draco eyed the body with contempt and disgust. He made no move to collect anything from it. Was it really her? It didn't look like her. He would wait until everyone left the room to check it.

"No?" Lucius inquired at his son's somber state. "Right, best not messy your hands with such filthy blood. I'll leave you to it then. Well done, son. You had strength to do what was needed." The man said passionately, almost wistfully, thumping him hard on the back. "We celebrate this today." He announced.

Draco impassive face turned to a frown. "Celebrate, but what about mother?"

"Who?" he asked coldly.

The Dark Lord did indeed wish to inspect the body. He inspecting it thoroughly for signs of deception. First, he cut her arm to see if she would react, he then threw a Crucio upon her, slapped her face, ran his hand along her breasts suggestively, all to a chorus of sniggers from his Death Eaters. Draco's own face was hard and unfeeling, though inside he felt he might be sick to his stomach.

Had he the slightest idea what had happened, he might have been frightened of the Dark Lord reading his thoughts. If he had looked inside his mind, which Draco was sure he was doing, he would see only the body he was now observing staring back at him. It seemed to be all the world consisted of at the moment. If he pushed deeper perhaps he may glimpse the dream that kept surfacing from the night before, the one in which she had died. There were no memories of the other times they had shared. It did not seem to involve the same person somehow.

Empty yourself of emotion, Snape had once told him. Shock was a powerful emotion, it pushed out all else, helplessness, grief, love, guilt. As he was numb to the world, there was no emotion the Dark Lord could pick up on, except occasional waves of grief if he thought of his mother, an overwhelming, smothering sadness. Seemingly satisfied, Voldemort gave Lucius a curt nod in the affirmative. Cheers instantly rose up from the crowd of death eaters that had gather in his family's dining room, but he silenced them for he was not yet done. Not quite.

Voldemort too thought her friends may not believe only a picture, a lock of hair. He desired to send them something more personal. And so he very carefully filled a vile with her stagnant blood and sealed it a cork. Draco stared right at it just as the Dark Lord wordlessly dared, but it did not matter. He could not see it. He saw her in red dress dying, asking if he was happy. How could he be happy? He was alone.

"Severus." Voldemort called and from the back of the crowd of followers a man made his way until he was kneeling before the body.

Voldemort grabbed the man's hands and laid in them the vial, hair, and picture. "Deliver to the Order our little Christmas present."

At that there was thunderous laughter. Leaning forward where only those near enough could hear, Voldemort whispered maliciously to him, "You tell Harry Potter that his little friend is dead." He nodded. The Dark Lord released and let him go to the fireplace where he quickly vanished. There was no trace of the guilt, the failure, the dread he should have. Could the man feel nothing?

"Yes, my Lord." Was Snape's unfeeling and obedient reply.

"My lord," Bella cautiously inquired. "Why not the body?"

"Why not the body?" Voldemort called to the hall. No one answered.

"What s to happen to it, my Lord?" Draco heard Fenrir Greyback ask.

He snapped harshly at some of his people, "Do not TOUCH the body. It will be buried securely, where those friends of hers will never get to it, in the Malfoy family crypt." Any other time, someone would have protested, said they would not have her flash laid to rest with that of Malfoy, but Lucius willing obliged with no sound of discontent. "Now, we celebrate this stupendous victory!" The ruckus of cheers and applause were but a distant note to Draco who stood paralyzed, staring at the body. That was all it was, a body, a cold out shell. It wasn't Hermione, not really.

He was so lost he did not even notice the Dark Lord approach him from behind, putting a fatherly arm on his shoulders.

"My Lord," he managed to remark in surprise, surprised that he did not recoil from the contact.

"Draco, Draco," he clicked his tongue. "All this pride and success yet you stand here glum. Why? I know your first killing feels a little, unnatural, but does it also not make you feel more…powerful? Human life takes so little to extinguish, only a swish of the wand and everything stops, the blood runs cold, the heart stills. Did you expect it to be more difficult perhaps?"

He nodded absently.

"This has made you stronger than you know. You have proved them all wrong about you, all those that doubted you. You've protected your family. You did enjoy it somewhat, did you not when you stood above her, the only one breathing. Didn't you feel alive?" he sucked in the air about them lustfully.

"Of course," he replied automatically.

"It's your poor mother then?" he inquired, his tone hardened somewhat. "She was a necessarily loss, my boy. Disobedience cannot be tolerated." His fingers dug into Draco's should slightly as a reminder, but he did not wince.

"Good." Voldemort nodded approvingly, giving Draco an appraising him for the first time.

"Yes my Lord." He replied.

Leaning in close the Dark Lord hissed in his ear, "Take your bride, Draco, and bury her."

He obeyed. Without thinking, Draco lifted the body in his arms and carried her as they looked on surprise. He did not take her down into the catacombs right away. Instead he took her to her room and called Knobby, giving her clear instructions.

Sobbing the elf cleaned the body and its wounds, then dressed her in her wedding gown she was made. Draco stood by without a sound. He wondered who had done this. His first thought was his mother saving him the trouble, but that impossible. She was dead when they arrived and Hermione still very much alive. Alive. It shouldn't be him doing this. It should be her friends. Those who really loved her selflessly loved her, as his mother had loved him. They should be preparing her body, laying her to rest, reading her favorite poem, saying a prayer, weeping.

He stopped thinking about weeping. Instead, he thought about his cousins. They must have done this. Then why not take credit for it? Did they perhaps want something in return and were waiting to blackmail him with it, or where they telling everyone now? Everyone seemed to be under the impression Draco had done the deed. They no longer questioned it. But he couldn't stop questioning it.

She was in bed when she was attacked. She had been staying. Maybe it was part of her plan, but it didn't matter. She had been staying for him. She had not left him alone. He wondered what she might have said in her last moments, what the killer may have told her. Did she call for him? Was that why he dreamed what he had?

He surveyed the room for a sign of the true murderer, sure his cousins had left some trace. He should have made her sleep in his room last night. He had not thought of it… He knew she wasn't safe, knew they would not be able to resist caged prey.

At last, his fiancée was ready. He looked over her body, entirely clothed in colorless. It was Hermione, he observed. She looked lovely and Knobby had brushed out her hair to thin wisps of satin and put delicate curls in the end. The elf sprayed the body lightly with the sweet perfume. Other than being ashen, she looked tranquilly asleep. He swallowed hard and without a word he carried her down the stairs.

Heading towards the back of the house, just past the library, he used his wand to lift a tapestry and open a door in the wall behind it. From there he descended down a long, stone staircase into the Malfoy catacombs. Every few feet, torches sprang to life at his appearance, but dimmed again as he moved away, keeping the lighting low. The place had a stale smell and a cold draft. He'd visited this eerie, quiet place only once before, when his grandfather had died. It had been frightening then, but scurrying mice, dusty bones, and looming shads no longer held any power to frighten him. How could anything be frightening anymore now that Death himself had accosted him and stabbed him in the heart?

Softly, weakly, he laughed. It was ironic. He had nothing to be afriad of anymore.

When he passed the crypt his mother was to be placed in the tears would not be abated any longer. Here, under cool, wet ground, in the secret darkness among only the dead, he could mourn.

He marveled at his tears as he wept as though his world was ending. Oh yes, he remembered, it was. But she really did look so lovely with those two white roses in her hands against that plain white dress the elf had placed her in. She was pallid herself, all the blood in her body still and cold as the Dark Lord has promised. He stood beside her and leaned over her stone bed, his breath on her face. He felt none on his. He pressed his forehead to her own and his tears fell on her stoic visage.

He finally asked himself had she done this? Had Hermione, as he thought when he first saw the room, decided to fake her own murder in attempt to save him? She had given up the faint hope of escape and chose not to leave him behind, not to give up on her insane belief that he was capable of true courage. But he wasn't. It was true, what she had said. He had killed her.

People don't just change, she had told him, something has to change them. Could that be what this was? Was she saving him? It was unselfish, saving both his cover and Snape's. It was brave. It was clever. It was loyal. It was Hermione. It was also proof of what she had been trying to convince him of all along. Life hand handed her the greatest test it could, and once again she had passed with flying colors. But why did she have to do that? Why give so much when it was never asked of her? When it wasn't even wanted?

Maybe it really was his cousins' doing, or his aunts, or his father's. Maybe it was even Snape's. Maybe, he pondered, but he knew it wasn't. He knew Hermione would never have let them win. In the end, she would have been defiant, ready to die but on her own damn terms. It should have made him happy to know she felt something for him, whatever it was. She should be happy she was proved right yet again. But neither could feel proper joy because she was dead.

Weeping, his head still against hers, he told her. "I'm not going to thank you, you know? So you can just forget it. I wish you had run away. I never wanted to see you again!" Again he cried. His face hurt from crying so much.

Then, through the tears and running nose and shaky breaths, "Kiss me." He whispered with a desperate hush, like a whining child. The body below him did not move. "Kiss me." He demanded, panting angrily. No laughter rang in vault. He pressed his own lips forcefully to hers and sobbed into her unmoving mouth, "Kiss me." She did not pull playfully away. "Kiss me!" he yelled in her face, his voice resounding off the cavernous expanses of the family catacombs. That's when he knew, he's only just begun to love her and she was gone too.

He took hold of her hands and their iciness sent and a chill down his own body. He held them tightly anyway, saying a prayer. He fell silent. A small tinkling sound rang in the tomb as something rolled out of her grip and onto the floor.

Something shimmered in his torch light. Squinting, he leaned forward and took hold of the tiny object, cool against his fingers, and brought it further into the light to examine it. Unintentionally, he let out a small gasp. This had been concealed in Hermione's interlaced lifeless fingers, hidden by the two white roses. With it, in Snape's scrawled handwriting, was a note, a note that, in four short words, explained everything.

It was worse than he thought.

A/N: And what were those words exactly? Review, please!