A/N: Another short oneshot. Set during the final battle. Dramione. Hope you like it.. :)

She trudged through the Forbidden Forest with a panicked yet steady pace, her dirt smudged face was pale and her bruised chest heaved with exertion. The forest was its eeriest at midnight but she paid no heed to her surroundings. Nor did she stop to tend to her bleeding arm and her torn clothes as they got trapped within the low lying branches. She had infinitely more pressing matters to attend to.

She could see the faint red glow of the Stunners being fired all around her. Though she couldn't make out if they were outside the boundaries of the forest or inside it, she sought momentary comfort from the fact that the Death Eaters weren't out to kill them now, despite their master's declaration of ceasefire. Maybe they wanted them all living so they could kill them at their own leisure. They had been instructed to capture Harry alive, full bodied and breathing.

Harry. Harry. Harry.

Her mind chanted the name like a prayer. He had taken off alone in the direction of the woods half an hour ago, and she knew what the dazed and defeated expression on his face had meant the instant they had finished listening to Voldemort's little address. Whatever he had seen in Snape's memories, it was enough for him to willingly surrender his life over to Voldemort. She just had to save him, if only she knew how. She had lost Ron in the way down here. She was desperate, alone and wandless. In the middle of a war, it was almost comical how she had still managed to survive. But for how long?

She wondered if she was still being followed. They hadn't revealed themselves yet. She didn't know who they were, or how many, she just knew that they had been making no voluntary effort to silence their footsteps. Though now it was all quiet, except for that low whooshing noise. Maybe it was all a ruse meant only to scare her, but by God it was working. Part of her wanted to turn around and scream at them to cut it out, but that level of stupidity was equivalent to imminent death in the given circumstances.

She tripped over a root and fell on all fours.

There was a familiar low chuckle behind her.

She faltered in the process of standing back onto her feet, but her eyes had automatically rolled up inside their sockets at the sound.

Of all the freakin' people…

Just what the hell did he think he was doing following her around? Was one pitiful attempt to capture them back inside the Room of Requirement not enough for him?

"Going to kill me from behind, Malfoy?"

There was a pause.

"Something along those lines."

She did not want to look at his face now but ignoring him had long lost its edge, and she knew from experience that whatever was going through that twisted ferret brain of his would eventually come out to get her, only ten times worse. And yet, all she wanted to do was turn around and kick him to the ground just so it could piss him off enough to leave her alone.

"I can hear all that, Granger. Should've brushed up on your wandless Occulumency."

On second thoughts-

She turned around, walked right up to him and slapped him with all the force she could muster in her state.

"How dare you. How dare you?" She hissed in his face.

In the filtering moonlight, his face turned red save for the pale imprint of her fingers on his right cheek. His face was completely blank but his grey eyes smouldered with a violent intensity as they settled on her mouth. For one completely crazy second, Hermione Granger wasn't sure whether he was about to kill her or kiss her.

The thought was gone as soon as it appeared, as instantly she felt something hard and pointed digging into her chest, right above her heart. She looked down at the wand in his hand, as if to escape his unfaltering gaze but her eyes widened as she recognized her own Dragon heartstring wand. What? She mouthed unconsciously.

She realized that hitting an armed Death Eater, one who could quite easily bring her down, had not been one of her brightest moments. She looked up at him, only to be startled by how close he was standing. He stood a whole head taller than her and was definitely much stronger.

His eyes softened at her expression and a slow smirk spread over his features.

"You should know better than to believe everything I say." he said, and she wondered whether he referred to his earlier statement about reading her thoughts, or it encompassed something else entirely.

He brushed his fingers down her arm, and carefully placed her wand in her palm, clasping her fingers securely around it.

"Can't have the brightest witch of her age strolling over to them without a wand on her now, can we?"

Her lips parted in amazement. He was handing her wand back to her. But why? Was it payback for saving his life back in the castle? That had been Harry, not her!

He lifted one hand to slowly rub his thumb over her lower lip. As he indulged, she sensed distantly that her mind was trying to tell her something.

"They're stationed five hundred yards east from here. Whatever you do, don't reveal yourself before Potter does." He whispered. "Good luck."

He drew his hand back.

"But-wait, Malfoy—you..", she faltered as she stared into his eyes, "..Why?"

But she knew the answer as soon as the word left her mouth.

She had known it when she'd seen the anguished expression on his face when Bellatrix had tortured her back at the Manor. She had known it when he'd looked at her on the night of the Yule Ball, the only person in the room who hadn't done a double take, while his eyes took her in. She had known it the countless times she would spot him watching her, and that time in the Greenhouse when he'd caught her around the waist to steady her as she tripped over the Dangler plant. She had known it when he had deliberately bumped into Ron's shoulder as he'd unwittingly gotten too close to her in the Potions storage cabinet. And she had seen it when she saw that brief flicker of surprised hurt in his eyes immediately after she'd punched him, back in their third year.

Merlin, she had even known it the first time he had ever called her Mudblood.

But in her schoolgirl naïveté, she had dismissed the notion as too ridiculous to consider, just as she had only a few moments ago.

He gave her a small, melancholy smile and slowly leaned his face toward hers. She did not recoil. He planted a soft, lingering kiss just at the corner of her lips...one that left her reeling, electrified and feeling just a little bit faint. He breathed out slowly, and she felt the exhilarating sensation of his breath deep inside her body. He brought his mouth right next to her ear, only to utter a single word.

"Guess."

She opened her eyes to find him standing ten steps away from her. She was dying to know whether he was feeling what she was feeling, whether his blood was pumping in his ears with a similar thunderous beat, like hers was, but his face was a carefully set mask.

After giving her one last parting look, he turned away and Disapparated.

I guess, we can safely assume that Draco was able to Disapparate as the wards around Hogwarts had been broken during the battle. :P

Please tell me what you thought!