Hermione looked at the world around her through blurry vision. Her chest felt like it was being compressed, she couldn't breathe. But mostly, she felt emotional pain. Her parents were dead. When she had received the news, she was so shocked and in pain that it triggered an asthma attack.

Someone was carrying her. Her body was suspended in the air, her head lolling around against someone's chest. Two strong but gentle arms held her, one under her knees and one supporting her back. She wheezed again and again.

"Hang on, Granger, just a little bit more." The voice rumbled through the person's chest and sounded worried and strained. The colors changed around her, and soon she felt Madam Pomfrey's motherly presence over her.

"Quick, lay her down here." Hermione felt gravity pull her down onto a hard bed, and she tensed up and coughed harder. She heard Madam Pomfrey mutter some incantations, and soon her labored gasping ceased to a heavy breathing.

"There you go honey, your friend is safe now." The nurse's heels clicked away distantly as Hermione's vision focused on the boy next to the bed.

He looked sorrowfully at her as he passed her the letter from his pocket. Hermione paled and she pressed the letter to her heart and broke down. She sobbed uncontrollably and rocked as a fresh wave of realization and pain slammed into her.

She tried to remember her parents, their waving forms happy on the train station. They loved her. And they were now gone. Where were they now? Where? Why can't she see them anymore? How could they be dead when they were so alive the last time she saw them?

Hermione wanted to hug them one more time. She wondered where they had gone, and wanted to go find them and their comforting warmth and unconditional love. They would be there for her. They always are. But now, wherever Hermione searched, she would never, ever be able to find them.

She curled up into a ball to fill the empty space in her heart, and her tears poured onto her shirt. She clutched the letter and her hair and the sheets in grief, but Draco just stared at her feeling pity and shame from his same spot in the corner.

She looked at him from the bed, tears streaking her cheeks and water filling her red eyes. Her nose was red from crying, her skin was blotchy, hair messy. She looked like death himself.

Draco sighed in dread and sat next to her, the weight of the bed moving. She gasped in realization as she looked into his eyes.

"You did this." Draco looked away. "You did, didn't you?" Hermione inquired, the anger and blame growing in her expression.

"No. I didn't." Draco answered back, not bearing her false accusation.

"Then who!" Hermione said in an unattractive screech.

"I think it may be my mother. Who killed your parents." He cringed as he said the words on his mind.

Hermione's face contracted and her teeth bared in complete fury. "And you are her demon spawn!" she screamed at him. She threw herself at him, pounded his chest with her fist, repeatedly screeching, "How could you? How could you?"

After 5 minutes, Hermione had considerably weakened her blows and was growing exhausted. Draco reached up and grabbed her hands. She struggled a bit but gave up. "You know you could be next." He tried to reach her eyes, but she wouldn't look at him. "My mother would kill any Mudblood without a doubt."

She finally met his stormy grey eyes. "Then what should I do?" It sounded more like a sentence than a question.

Draco's voice grew dangerous and said, "Marry me. It will infuriate my mother and dishonor her. She deserves it already, doing this to us." After a pause, he admitted, "I hate her too. I want to get revenge."

They looked at each other, eyes showing desperation for something they both wanted badly: revenge.

Draco lowered his voice to a comforting tone. "Come to me. Just do as I say, and you'll be fine. Do what I tell you, and I can keep you safe."

Eye to eye, they both knew what they had to do with a rebellious defiance. Draco lowered his face to the girl's slowly and hesitatingly, and Hermione confirmed it by meeting his lips halfway there. They kiss not for love, but for hate and revenge. Their tears mixed together and their lips moved against each other in passion.