Author's note/ I am actively working on my wips i assure you. (No one rip my head off please.) I have someone who beta reads for me so i can give you the best reading experience possible, and i would rather work at a story for awhile instead of just posting something for the heck of it. That being said my beta and i are still working out bits on my other stories and in the meantime i wanted to post this one shot work for you Dramione lovers. This piece was originally written for a different fandom if you feel inclined you can find it on my profile. Someone who follows that fandom and my work in the Potter fandom messaged me on Tiktok and said they'd have enjoyed this as a Dramione work so voila here you are. This is not a story for smut this is a heartbreaker if i'm honest. Seriously if you aren't prepared to cry don't read this. Like most of what i write this is a dark story so if this kind of thing triggers you, so sorry. This is a story about death, and grief, and self blame, but it's also about moving on. Loosely based on my own experiences. I lost my best friend when we were both 16. With every year that goes by i expect to forget the sound of her voice or the way her whole body shook when she laughed, but i don't. She'll always be with me in ways i still struggle to understand. Writing these kinds of stories are my way of coping with what happened. I like to share them because if by some chance someone else out there reads it, and gets it, i hope it helps you on your own grief journey. The title of course was inspired by a Taylor Swift song- give it a listen while you read if you feel like it. Without further ado, enjoy!

Xoxo

Catstclaire


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"There she is."

Hermione turns her face, hoping it's at least partially concealed inside her locker. Her cheeks burn. Which is ridiculous she should be used to this by now. The whispers, the unwanted attention, even the ill contented looks she gets everyday.

It's her own fault she guesses. The school had offered to allow her to finish out the year online. She didn't have to be here in the school. She could be at home, hiding under her covers. Crying. Pretending like nothing ever happened.

"I heard she climbed out of the car by herself before the paramedics got there-" A group of girls are gossiping so close to her in the hall, she can hear every word they say, no matter how low their voices are. It's Lavender Brown who speaks the loudest. "I heard she wouldn't talk, they didn't even know who any of them were when they got to the hospital. A neighbor of the Weasley's worked in the hospital that night and she's the reason they-"

"I heard" Hannah Abbott cut in, delighting at telling her bit. "She still hasn't said a single word."

Hermione can feel them looking at her. Like she's some sort of science project, that they're eager to poke and prod at. She slams her locker shut before one of them decides to try to approach her.

Maybe she hadn't said anything since. Hermione wasn't doing it on purpose. She couldn't quite find the words. She didn't have anything of worth to say, she felt. What was there to say? It happened. Nothing she said could change that.

Hermione has English next hour, but today she doesn't feel like going. She cuts across a hallway and down the steps to the first floor. When she gets to the journalism room she shuts the door behind her. She took journalism last semester, and the teacher doesn't mind that Hermione has taken to using the back room on occasion. It's the only place she can be alone here.

Hermione tosses her bag down, not caring when it spills open. She kicks the contents until they scatter across the room further. She slides into a chair, pulls up her hood, and puts her face on the desk. She cries. Why can't they all just leave her alone? Why can't they just pretend she doesn't exist? She does her best to stay out of everyone's way. She's quiet. Meek. Docile. An entirely different person than she was last semester.

It could be worse. She knows. The students don't hate her. Not like they would Ron, if he had lived. No. They pity Hermione. They feel bad for her, and it makes her almost wish they did hate her, at least they wouldn't go out of their way to get her attention. They invite her to parties, try to include her in the student section at ball games, and chat nonsense to her in class, no matter how many dead fish looks she gives them. Why don't they get it?

Hermione isn't interested in parties, or basketball games, and she isn't interested in being anyone's friend. Not anymore. Not ever again.

She was though. Last semester. She wanted to go to parties, and sporting events, and she had so so many friends. Her life is different now. She is different now.

She was loud, boisterous, and confident once. She knew she was pretty. She used to wake up an hour earlier than she needed to, so she could straighten her hair and paint her lips, so she could properly doll up before school everyday. She liked it when the boys watched her float down the hallways in her kitten heels, especially when one boy in particular watched her. If she was honest all that primping and fuss had really only ever been for Draco. To get his attention, to make him see her. To want her. It was working she thought, towards the end before-

She laughs. 'If only he could see her now.' She tells herself. These days she can't even be bothered to run a comb through her hair. Her kitten heels are gathering dust in a closet, and she lives in sweatpants and hoodies. Her makeup's all expired. She's a mess.

Her parents are worried, how could they not be? She's 15 lbs underweight, doesn't speak, and never leaves her bedroom. Her grades are tanking. She's afraid they might force her into one of those trauma programs they do for kids. Lock her up in some hospital until all the bad thoughts are gone. She thinks that will make things worse though. So around her parents she always makes sure to give them a smile. It's fake but it's enough to keep her from the pysch ward, and that's all she cares about.

Hermione had been an exemplary student always, ever since kindergarten. She got straight A's. She did every assignment until it was perfect, she read the assigned chapters weeks before they were meant to, asked for extra credit work even. Now she's barely skating by in all of her classes.

Hermione doesn't like to think. Not about much of anything. Even schoolwork leads her back to the thoughts she wants to silence the most. The ones from that night. It's easier to let her mind be still, to empty it and let it remain empty. Stare at walls, and practically fall asleep with her eyes open. She doesn't want to be forced into remembering-

Remembering the busted glass on the asphalt.

Remembering Ginny's gasping, wheezing, choked sounds as she struggled to breathe.

Remembering how small, and broken Draco looked in the backseat. His eyes unseeing, but his hand still clasped tightly around hers.

Remembering the blood covering Ron as she climbed over him, to get out of the car. His blood had smeared all over her as she tried to flag down help, and later she'd had to throw away her shirt when the blood wouldn't wash out. Red with white stripes, that top had been her favorite.

Remembering seeing the Weasley's car bent, and crushed like an accordion from where she stood outside it. The sight had made her scream, and scream until she couldn't make anymore sound.

Hermione feels the snot, and dribble on her face and she doesn't care. She wipes with the back of the hoodie she's wearing, it's scent is overly ripe without having been cleaned for far to long. It smells questionable, but she just doesn't care. Not about anything anymore.

Hermione never blamed Ron. Not even now. If anyone was justified to hate him it should be her, right? The only one that survived the car crash he caused. But no matter how she felt, people blamed him. She heard what they said, and it gutted her.

'He was the oldest, he should have known better.'

'Got what he deserved.'

Would they all feel differently Hermione wondered, not for the first time, if they knew they'd all been drinking that night? Easily it could have been any of them behind that wheel. Any one of them. They were teenagers, and in their minds they we're invincible. Death wasn't real to them. It happened to other people, older people.

Would they feel different if they knew Hermione had been the one to insist they leave the party when they did?

There was a memorial at the school. Ron's name wasn't on it. Hermione could only imagine how it had to feel for their family. The Weasley's lost 2 of their children in a night, and only one of them was mourned by the community.

It was a mistake. An accident. Yet, people acted like Ron had wanted them to die. Like Ron had meant to slam the car into that bridge. It was unfair.

What was her life supposed to even be now?

Her entire life it had been the 3 of them. Draco, Hermione, and Ginny. They were best friends. Since they were really little.

Ginny was sunshine, smiles, and the typical jock. Draco and Hermione used to make signs on poster boards to hold up at her games. Most of the time they said funny things.

'Don't pee your pants, Ginny. Again!' With again highlighted and underlined.

'#7 owes me money.'

Sometimes though they were serious.

'#7 is a beast!' Featuring pictures of the incredible hulk.

'Ginny Weasley is basketball!'

Ginny was always the one Hermione went to when she wanted to laugh.

Draco was brooding, and dark, but that was his appeal. He didn't praise anyone often, but when he did you knew he meant it. He didn't waste his time on unnecessary words. He didn't talk just to talk. Hermione liked that about him. She liked him. Alot. More than she'd ever liked anyone. It might have even been love, but now she probably won't ever know.

Draco was smart. He was right on Hermione's heels for class valedictorian. The whole class knew that. There wasn't any question. Now with Draco dead, and Hermione slack jawed they say it'll probably be Hannah stupid Abbott that gets valedictorian.

Draco was class president. Head of a few other clubs. What all others envied him for or at least the guys, was being captain of the track team. He was tall, and agile and cut through the air like a knife when he ran. All the girls in school used to come out for the track meets just to watch Draco run. He always seemed to find Hermione's eyes though up in that crowd. He always winked up at her before the start gun went off. Then after the race when he'd won and they gave him his medal, he'd trot over to Ginny and her grinning that rare grin of his. Draco would pull Hermione over, and put the medal on her neck. He let her wear his track jacket sometimes to. It made her feel alive when it was like that. When they were all together.

They used to pile in the Weasley's car and get fast food. Always blasting their radio to loud, driving to fast, and feeding each other as they drove. It was all the more funny when they got ramen, the noodles ending up in the floor boards. That car saw so much laughter.

Ron hung out with them sometimes. Even though he was a year older, and a grade above them. At school he was Ron Weasley musical genius, but at Ginny's house he was the cool older brother that played songs for them on his thrift store keyboard. Lots of classical, once Ginny convinced him to play Taylor Swift because she thought it would be funny but it had actually blown her away. Hearing Ron croon the sultry notes of the popstar was a memory Hermione hoped she'd never lose.

As Ron's fingers flew over the keys, and sang.

'Say you'll remember me, Standing in a nice dress, Staring at the sunset, babe, Red lips and rosy cheeks, Say you'll see me again, Even if it's just in your wildest dreams, ah-ah, ha, Wildest dreams, ah-ah, ha'

Draco was inching closer to Hermione on the couch, and when Ginny turned away, Draco kissed her for the first time.

She never understood it. Why he started to like her. She wasn't athletic, she couldn't play an instrument to save her life, she was just Hermione.

She wished though she could know what the point had been, though. Why had she gotten to know them, love them all so much, only to lose them all the way she had. What was the point in that amount of suffering?

Somethings in life she guessed, just weren't meant to be known. Like why Professor Snape seemed to hate children with a passion but had ended up becoming a teacher. Or why Lavender had broken Hermione's diorama of the roman coliseum in 8th grade.

Hermione felt like the walking dead. Everyone around her seemed to be going forward, together. She watched them in the halls at school. Laughing and joking with their friends like she used to. But Hermione was all alone now. It felt like she would be forever.

She hadn't wanted to work on school from home not because she thought it would be harder, but because this was the place she remembered them the best, the most. Here at school. No one used Ginny's or Draco's locker's anymore and sometimes she'd go sit next to them like she was just waiting on them to show up in between class change. It was nice to pretend sometimes, that they were just in class, or out sick for the day.

Hermione felt her pocket vibrate. She pulls her hood down to check it. A text from her mom. Telling her the english teacher called to let her know she wasn't there. Hermione rolls her eyes. She snaps a selfie of herself, and you can barely see her because she never bothered to turn the lights on. She sends it and a tells her mother she is at the school, just not in class. Hopefully no one will care. She gets special treatment from the faculty, she knows it. They don't mark her tardy when she rolls in 15 minutes passed the 1st bell, and they don't hassle her when she doesn't answer their questions or speak in class.

Her tears have run dry, and instead of putting the phone away she opens her photo app. She avoided looking at pictures for awhile, she didn't want to see their faces, but these days it's all she wants to do. Scroll through her phone and remember what it was like to be in the moment the picture was taken.

The first photo on her camera roll is also the last one they ever took all of them together. It's Draco, and Ginny with Hermione in between them in the foreground, the middle of the picture. Their arms slung around each other, giddy smiles, and red solo cups clasped in fingers. They were all buzzed she knows. In the background by chance Ron was there, flirting with his girlfriend at the time. Ron's got a lanyard around his neck, with the family car keys around it.

Ron wasn't going to be there that night at Neville's party, but Draco had driven them and his car wouldn't start. Ginny had called Ron to drive them home, and Hermione can't remember seeing Ron drink but he must have because that's what the autopsy said.

She zooms in on their faces. Ginny's teeth are shiny white like little pearls, her pink jacket was missing the zipper but she still kept it because it had been her mom's. Ginny's looking at Draco with a smirk, and she knows she told a joke, she doesn't remember it though. Draco's laughing so hard there were actual tears in his eyes. Then there's Hermione between them, her lids heavy, and her lipstick smeared, but she looks happy.

An hour after that picture was taken most of them were dead.

Hermione closes the app.

Fresh tears start to come.

...

Her mother slides a bowl of spaghetti to her at dinner, and she is thrown back in time. Little things always seemed to trigger it the most. The memories she didn't want, but also didn't want to forget.

"Come on. Just this once, you're ridiculous." Ginny pouts at Draco from the other side of Draco's bedroom closet.

There are rows of jackets, and pants hung neatly. Coordinated by their color. Draco Malfoy took care of his things.

"Absolutely not. You know the rules." Draco gripes back at their best friend.

The rule was Ginny was under no circumstances allowed to borrow Draco's clothes. Something about a shirt of Draco's getting trashed in middle school was the reason for the rule. Ginny maintained her innocence.

Hermione laughs at their antics, and Ginny turns on her.

"You let, Hermione wear your track jacket all the time!" Ginny implores, eyes narrowed.

"That's different."

"How?"

"She isn't a slob like some people i know." Draco side eyes her.

"I'm beginning to suspect you have a favorite, between the two of us." Hermione rolls her eyes at Ginny's words.

"Oh." Draco says dumbly.

"Yeah, now don't you feel bad for hurting my feelings?"

Draco shakes his head. "No, let me help put your suspicions to bed though. She is my favorite." It's a joke and it's cheeky, and it completely messes with Ginny exactly like he wanted.

Draco jerks the jacket Ginny was hoping to wear out of her hand, and tosses it to Hermione. She laughs again. Ginny nonplussed and she stands.

"You two are going to make us late." With a look she gives the jacket back to Ginny, who looks like she's on cloud 9. The school was hosting a Spaghetti dinner fundraiser that night.

The jacket is white, and soft like a bunny. Clean and fresh like a new snow.

Draco scoffs at her, but doesn't move to take the jacket away from Ginny.

When they go to dinner that night, and Ginny spills spaghetti sauce all over the jacket Hermione frowns. Draco however looks over at her as if to say 'See what you did.'

Hermione pushes the spaghetti her mom made back. Spaghetti doesn't taste quite the same anymore.

...

It had been a year. A year without ramen, sporting events and living room concerts. A year of isolation. A year without speaking.

Hermione had visited where Ginny, and Ron were buried a week earlier. Their parents buried them on the outskirts of town because the plots were the cheapest they could find, she left them both flowers, and a porcelain horse for Ginny that she saw at a flea market.

If she could have found her voice she would have told them she missed them. Asked them things even though she knew they couldn't answer. She would have promised she would come back. She had been to the Weasley's grave many times over the course of the year.

She however hadn't been able to muster up the courage to see where Draco was laid to rest. There was something so final about seeing a person's grave. It was admitting, really admitting you would never see them again. It was admitting everything between you and everything that might have been was gone. That was why she hadn't gone yet. Until now, she couldn't bring herself to admit it. That Draco was gone, never coming back, and they'd never get married like she always hoped.

When she gets to the cemetery she doesn't even have to look to find it. The grave of Draco Malfoy. An intricately carved marble statue of him looking up towards the sky towers above all the other graves. The Malfoy's had spared no expense. It's polished, and breathtaking. His features in stone so realistic- so lifelike it makes her want to reach up to stroke the unyielding rock.

Hermione pauses when she sees someone else standing before the Draco statue. It was obvious that he was there for Draco, like she was. She hoped it wasn't Draco's father. She wouldn't know how to face Lucius.

She approaches hesitantly. Her flower arrangements in hand. Neville had helped her pick them all out earlier, in his family's flower shop. The meanings all symbolic.

When she's close enough the man hears her approach and her breath catches when he turns to look at her. He could be Draco's brother. The eyes, the aristocratic jaw, and the tall lanky body build.

The only noticeable difference between Draco and this stranger is the hair. Where Draco's was a refined silver blonde affair, this man sports a mess of chocolate brown curls atop his head.

The man realizes without having to ask.

"Strong family resemblance huh?" He nods his head, and pulls a pair of spectacles from his shirt pocket. "I was his cousin, through his mother's side. Harry." He pushes the glasses up his nose with a single finger, and his brows scrunch up as he scrutinizes her.

Hermione smiles weakly. Nodding at him cordially. She vaguely recalls Draco mentioning someone named Harry that he knew. Hermione decides to make the visit short. Harry watches her place the flowers for Draco, and step back.

"A flower for Ron to?" Harry recognized her she realized then. He knew she was in the car with them. She nods her head again. It was Neville who had explained the flowers she had just laid down to her, and he hadn't even wanted any money for them. When the accident happened people in town had unofficially decided to send white roses for Draco, and daisies for Ginny. The flowers became symbolic for them, and of the accident. Hermione remembered seeing the roses, and the daisies draped on their lockers for awhile in the few weeks after- but that time period was hazy so she just let Neville tell her what to take. People still bought the same flowers for them to take to their graves now, Neville explained. Especially now that the anniversary of their deaths has arrived. "I've never seen anyone bring one for Ron." His voice is gravelly, and he runs his hand across the stubble on his chin as if he's inspecting some freakish anomaly- like a 2 headed snake or a creature with albinism.

The bouquet she laid down was daisies, and snow white roses, but there in the center was a single daffodil. When she had asked Neville what flower people bought for Ron he had stared at her blankly. She guessed no one had bought for Ron. Then she asked Neville what flower stood for forgiveness. Daffodils. They meant forgiveness. So that's what Hermione decided would be Ron's.

Before she even realizes Hermione speaks the first sentence to come out of her mouth in a year.

"It wasn't Ron's fault." She defends her friend.

Harry's eyebrows rise. He looks her up and down like he's looking for something in particular. "I never said it was." He tells her solemnly.

They stand awkward for a few minutes neither of them saying anything. Then she quietly leaves.

When she gets home, she starts to turn it over in her mind more and more. Of all the times she could have said something she never had, until now. To Harry Potter. Why?

...

Weeks go by. She has good days and bad. On the bad days she can't eat, getting out of bed is hard, and it becomes routine for her to ignore her phone as it buzzes and buzzes. Anyone she would want to talk to is 6 feet under, so she lets it ring. On the good days Hermione usually decides to visit the graves.

Hermione speaks a bit more now. "No. Yes. Okay." Are her go to. She still wonders what it was about Harry that made her speak out.

Then she gets the chance to finally figure it out when they run into each other again. He's wearing a long coat, a family sigil on the back. She knows because she had seen it on alot of Draco's clothes through the years- she had hoped to wear that sigil herself someday. She had a notebook somewhere with the design doodled all over it, and renditions of her name hyphenated 'Granger-Malfoy', and not 'Malfoy.'

Harry's shoulders hunch in exactly the same way Draco's did when it was cold she notices.

"You live in London." Hermione states walking up to his side. He doesn't turn, but he drops the cigarette he'd been smoking and snuffs it out with his foot.

Draco had told her some about his family back in london. The illustrious Black family owned a large company, ran by it's many members. Pharmaceuticals or something. Draco's family had moved to the States to open a branch for the company.

"Yeah." Harry answers. "Sort of."

She gives him a questioning look, not bothering to speak.

"When the accident- when it happened the family sent me out. To help the branch Lucius started. Draco was supposed to take it over eventually, but- i kind of go back and fourth to the head company. Not sure it's permanent, me being here."

He tells her that last bit almost as if he's warning her. Don't get to attached. She feels is the hidden message.

Hermione clicks her tongue. She's struggling to find the words to ask him or tell him at least how his showing up changed things.

She knows he isn't Draco. Somehow though it's still comforting to be near him. It feels like talking to a friend. It's why she spoke to him in the first place she realizes. She's about to leave having solved her own question, then for reasons she never understood he asked her to stay.

"Tell me about them." Harry says and he is older than Hermione but he sounds so much older in that moment. He doesn't sound like a young college grad, he sounds like a tired man who has already seen to much in his 2 decades around the sun. "I never had the pleasure of meeting Ron or Ginny, and Draco was still small when he left London." He explains. "I always expected when Draco got older, when he joined the family business i'd get to know him like when we were kids again but-" he sighs. "now i just want to know who he was in the end, ya know?"

Hermione nods.

"Ginny." Her throat constricts around the name. "She was into sports."

"Yeah, i saw pictures she struck me as the jock type." Harry smiles. "Draco used to talk about her when he came home to visit, and he wrote me letters sometimes. He talked about you to. Alot."

It simultaneously makes her happy, and sad to learn that. She continues on.

"Ron hated the piano." Harry looks shocked, and adjusts the red scarf around his neck.

"What?" He realigns his spectacles with his middle finger. "All anyone says about him is what great talent he had as a musician, and well-" he mumbles. "you know."

She did know. People spoke about Ron but not in sadness or pity, they spoke about his wasted potential. A shame that scholarship was wasted on Ron, and not someone who didn't kill himself and others by drinking and driving. The only redeeming thing people said about Ron since the accident was his musical talent. It was ironic in an awful way that the thing people praised him for he had so detested in life.

"Oh yeah. Despised it actually." She grins. "He was really good at it, and everyone always praised him for it. That made him hate it even more because he always wanted to play a sport, but Arthur made him focus on the piano."

"I never would have guessed." Harry scratches at his head.

She shrugs her shoulders. Hermione only knew because she'd bothered to ask Ron once. She noticed he never seemed to smile when he performed. Ron played for the people around him, never himself. In life he was giving, and always put others before himself.

Knowing that Hermione had used it to manipulate Ron the night they all died. She was the one who had begged Ron with teary eyes, even as he tried to convince her to wait awhile longer.

'If i miss curfew, my parents will ground me. Ron. They would make me miss the prom. Please. Please. Drive us back now.'

Her fault.

If she had just taken her lumps. If she had just let herself be grounded. They could all still be alive. Or even if they had left 5 minutes earlier or later. If it hadn't been that precise moment, Ron would never had to of swerved when the deer crossed into the road, he never would have driven them into the bridge. Sometimes the what if's she came up with in her head made Hermione wish she hadn't been able to get out of that car. She wished she had just died there to.

Hermione chokes a sob back. "Draco was..." She doesn't even know where to begin. How did you describe the person who was everything to you? Your reason to breathe, your north star, your absolute favorite person. She bites her lip.

"I get it. If it's to hard to talk about Draco. I know you two weren't official, but if it's any consolation Aunt Narcissa told me they approved of you. She helped him pick a corsage out for you, he was going to ask you to the prom, ya know? Make it official."

It felt like a gut punch. She had hoped Draco was going to ask her. She had spent the entire school year hoping for it. She had spent weeks prior to the accident dropping subtle hints to him.

'Does this color go with my eyes? Or maybe it goes better with lighter eyes?' When she batted her lashes up at Draco and forced him to look at dress options.

She even shamelessly enlisted Ginny's help.

'I'm going with Dean Thomas to prom.' Hermione had made Ginny tell Draco at lunch. 'Anyone you might want to go with?' Ginny's eyes flickering over to Hermione suggestively.

Hermione nods dismissively at Harry and the bittersweet memories. "I have to go."

She sobs the entire car ride home.

...

It becomes an unofficial routine. They meet in the cemetery every Friday evening, when the footbal games and pep rally's happen. Hermione wouldn't have gone to them anyways but it's nice to have something to blame it on.

Sometimes Harry brings coffee. Sometimes she asks if she can try one of his cigarettes. He always says no with a laugh. They share stories.

They build rapport with each other and bond over their mutual grief.

Hermione learns about Draco's early life in London, and stories only his family members would know. His front tooth got knocked out when he was a toddler, curtesy of an impatient Harry pushing him down a slide. Draco used to chase peacocks on a farm the family owns. All things he never had the chance to tell her.

The more time they spend together the more she opens up. The more Hermione begins to speak.

Finding her voice again is both hard and easy.

Harry makes her feel again. She starts to think she isn't so alone next to him, but then he had to go and ruin it.

"Where are you going next year?"

"Going?"

"For college."

Oh.

"Not sure yet." She decidedly does not mention she's failing English.

"You haven't even thought about it." He accuses.

"Maybe."

"You know." Harry begins and the way he takes a drag of his cigarette lets her knows she's about to get an earful. "It's okay to miss them. Hell it's okay to be pissed at the world, and cry, and refuse to talk. It just isn't okay to stop living. To stop caring about your future. Do you think they'd want that? To see you dragging your feet, and so miserable you don't even comb your hair or wash your hoodie?"

It's like she's been slapped.

The hoodie she has on is silver and black. It was Draco's once. All though now it smelled much more of her than it did him, she couldn't bring herself to wash it. It was a piece of him, once she washed it, it was another part of him she would lose. She had slept in it for awhile now. Wore it a couple times each week to school. So she was the smelly kid in class now? It's not the worst thing that's ever happened to her she decides.

"Throwing away your future is as good as spitting on their graves."

"I'm not-" She flounders trying desperately to pick apart his cruel words to defend herself somehow. Then when she can't she admits it. The thing that's been weighing on her since the accident.

They had talked about alot of things, but never had they discussed the accident.

"It was my fault. That night. The crash. All of it."

Harry's cigarette has almost burnt down to his skin, but he puts his hands around his ears like he's trying to block out her admission.

"Before when you said it wasn't Ron's fault. I never understood what you meant by that."

"Exactly what i just said. It was my fault."

"No it wasn't." He challenges.

"It was." Her voice is fierce. She believes it with every fiber of her being. "If I hadn't-"

"No!" Harry thunders at her, and she sees his similarities to Draco light up immediately- all at once. His eyes blaze with that same conviction Draco lived and died with. "You can't play what if. What if i did this or that! It isn't what happened, so don't torture yourself with it!"

"But if-" she tries.

"No! No more if." Harry drops the cigarette once it finally burns him. "You want to hear the truth of it?" He shakes his head. "No you need to hear the truth. Ron made the decision to get behind that wheel."

"But i'm the one-"

He cuts her off. "Ron got behind that wheel, knowing he had been drinking. He put all of your lives in danger. It's an honest to God miracle he didn't kill all of you. There isn't anyone else to blame."

Harry was shaking with rage or sorrow Hermione can't decide.

"He sounds like he was an allright bloke from what you've told me, but it doesn't excuse what he did. I'm so fucking angry at him, and if he was standing here right now I don't know if i would be glad he didn't die or if i would punch him. I know you want to blame yourself, but you just can't. You aren't to blame for what you said or did you couldn't have known, Hermione. No one could have known."

She isn't sure at what point it was that she began to cry, but she feels the wetness as it slides down her cheeks.

"I know you were all drinking that night, but you were the only one who got a second chance, just don't squander it." Harry throws over his shoulder as he leaves.

...

The next time they meet is days later.

They do not mention their previous encounter.

Hermione gives Harry the name of the school she's decided to attend. She put her brain back to work. Clicked it back on because It's time to get back to her school work. She's going to have to start off at junior college- but she's glad to start handing in her work again. It makes her feel like the old her.

Just like that, and she doesn't feel so alone again.

...

"Here." Harry offers up one of his cigarettes on a random whim. They are standing in the graveyard, the flowers are in bloom, and Draco's stone face towers above them still looking to the heavens.

Hermione smiles. "It's good to be 18." She could only conclude it was her age that made Harry so against her smoking. Now that she's of age he doesn't seem to mind.

She barely has taken one drag before she hears Harry's shocked voice.

"Oh shit." Harry grunts out, and stubs his cigarette out quicker than what should be humanly possible.

"Wha-" Is all Hermione manages before she starts wishing the ground would swallow her up.

"Aunt Cissy." Harry greets.

Hermione's cigarette is dangling out of her mouth, she feels like an idiot under the imperious gaze of Narcissa Malfoy. She always had before and now seeing her in the flesh after all this time it's even more so.

"Hermione. What a pleasant surprise." There are wrinkles at the corner of Narcissa's eyes Hermione can't recall being there when she saw her last, and her hair looks to have lost that silky luster she always found herself envying. Time wasn't being kind to Narcissa.

Hermione looks to Harry but he gives her a look that says. 'You're on your own kid.'

Hermione's cheeks burn with embarrassment as Narcissa shakes her hand.

"Lucius and i miss seeing you around our house." She tells her staring up at the statue of her dead son.

"I'm-" Hermione starts and fails to finish. She had thought about visiting the Malfoy's. Frequently she thought about it, but she always decided against it. Wouldn't it just cause them more pain to see the only survivor of the car crash that killed their son?

"I understand of course." Her voice is commanding and serious like always, but there's a softness to it now. "After all this passed year has been particularly hard on you as well hasn't it?"

"I'm sorry." For not visiting. For not dying with everyone else. For having a part in causing the accident. Mostly she's sorry things didn't go differently. In another life she might have called Narcissa her mother.

"You would have been so good for him. For my Draco." Narcissa remarks and begins to trace the name etched into marble.

Hermione doesn't realize Narcissa is crying until Harry walks over to put an arm around her shoulder.

...

The last time she meets with Harry is the summer before she starts junior college.

It's raining in the cemetery and it makes Draco's statue look like he's crying.

As the sky darkened slowly into night around them Harry tells her he's going back to London. Draco's parents have decided to close the branch and return home to be with the rest of their family.

"They'll just leave him here?" Hermione asks biting back tears for many reasons. Her eyes haven't left Draco's stone face since she arrived. The rain slides over the top of her umbrella, and passed her face. Harry has his hood up but it's a cloth jacket and it's soaking through.

"They aren't leaving him. They'll come back to visit. They have to move on. It's time. There isn't anything for Lucius and Narcissa here, anymore." There isn't a reason for Harry to be here anymore either she thinks. Her eyes sting from forcing back the tears. She's gotten good at holding back her emotions. "London will be good for them."

"They didn't have to close the branch though, you could have ran it." You could have stayed here with me, she accuses.

"I told you I didn't know if this would be permanent." She hears the regret in his voice but it does little to soothe the ache in her bones.

Harry had brought her back to life. The little ember inside of her had been about to die out when she met him, and he fanned her back into existence somehow.

She wasn't in love with him, nor did she have a crush on him. However the thought of Harry walking out of her life made her want to scream. They had become friends hadn't they? Didn't she mean something to him? Or was she just that weird girl his cousin almost dated before he died? Had she been misinterpreting their interactions this entire time?

"You're gonna be just fine you know?" He smiles at her fondly like an older brother might have if she ever had one.

Hermione scoffs, and turns so quickly so she can shout at him closer she drops her umbrella. Raindrops glide down her face, and she feels the top of her head begin to dampen.

"How can you say that? How do you know that? Look at me!" Her dark eyes dart down at her still unwashed hoodie. Her hair is knotted in places, and she is sure she will have to cut it soon. She is a proper mess.

"Grief isn't the end Hermione, and healing isn't either."

Harry slaps both of his hands on her shoulders, and she feels paralyzed. She had seen Lucius do it to Draco on more than one occasion. Draco had only done it to her once. The very night he died.

"What does that mean?" She asks rubbing her shoulders once he's stepped back from her.

"It's a gesture of respect," Harry grins. "and fondness. Keep in touch kid." Harry hands her a post it with an address on it.

That night she washes Draco's hoodie.

It's finally time for her to move on to, she decides.

Her friends would want that for her.

...

10 years later

Dear Harry,

I hope Pansy is doing well. I enjoyed all of the pictures she sent me. Narcissa looks good as a great aunt, she seems really happy. I'm glad. Lucius would have been to if he was still here. The baby has your hair, but i have a feeling he might have his namesakes temper. Narcissa always talked about how grumpy Draco was as a baby.

I still miss him like crazy you know. Ginny and Ron to of course. It's just Draco and i ended before we ever really got to begin. I'll probably always be angry about that. I think about what you told me though. 'Grief isn't the end, and neither is healing.' I'm not done grieving and I'm not done healing, I probably won't ever be, now i know it's okay. I'm okay. I know it wasn't my fault, but i think i needed someone to point it out for me unfortunately.

I never thanked you, all those years ago. I'm not sure what i would have done if you hadn't been there all those times to visit him with me. I really needed someone back then, more than you know. So anyways, thank you Harry.

Sending all of my love to, baby Draco. I'll take some more flowers to the original sometime this week, i'll send your love.

-Hermione

There comes a times when Hermione dusts off her kitten heels, buys new makeup, and clothes. She brushes and cuts her hair. Hermione learns to take care of herself again.

Hermione attended junior college first, then worked her way over to a state University where she graduated with honors. She became a teacher at her old high school. She insisted Ron's name finally be added to the memorial there.

Her students don't know that she once had a group of friends. That they used to sit with her in these very same bleachers. Many. Many. Times. Her students don't know that when she sits in these bleachers watching her students, and cheering them on well, sometimes she forgets.

She forgets Draco, and Ginny, and Ron never graduated. She forgets they never went on to college. She forgets they never got married, or had kids. Sometimes on friday nights she turns around excited about whatever goal or play just happened and her face is lit up, but it falls when she remembers they aren't there to share the moment. They would never share another moment in fact, because their stories all ended a long time ago. Their final pages written and read so long ago she doubts they would even recognize her now.

Hermione pictures their ghosts sitting with her in these bleachers. It's a dark way to cope but one she doesn't rely on often.

Ginny's sneaker's are pristine, and white but she wipes them like she's cleaning them. Ron's drumming his fingers on the wood to the sound of the school band. Draco with his hands in his pockets and his eyes locked on her, nudges her knee.

"Where have you been?" They ask.

Not understanding why she didn't go with them that fateful night.

But it had never been her choice not to go with them. She had not always understood that, She spent alot of her time blaming herself for not leaving with them, for not dying when they did. It hadn't been a choice of whether to go or stay. It had just been a terrible twist of fate. No one's fault. No one's choice. If it had she would have gone. Hermione knew they would never have left her either, not on purpose.

"Right where you left me." She smiles with all the love and devotion she can muster. Her smile is genuine.

Maybe Hermione hadn't ever made friends quite like the ones she had growing up, but the way she looked at it she hadn't needed to. Her friends memory was kept alive, she never forgot them, she moved on but she never forgot them.

Ginny came to her in the gentle breezes of spring. Blinding rays of sunshine. In the flap of a butterflies wings, she swears she can hear her voice. 'I'm okay. I miss you.' She says.

Ron came in the chirp of crickets, croaking of frogs, and crashing of waves. The sounds of nature became lullabies, they make her nostalgic. What she wouldn't give for one more living room concert.

Dark clouds and dreary days are Draco. In the light of the moon, the shadows dance, and she always sees his face.

And he winks.