Chapter 3

"Where are we?" Draco asked, his voice throaty.

Hermione pushed him away and covered her face with her hands. "We're in one of my memories. In the pensieve."

Draco turned toward her. "In the pensieve? Two people at once?"

She moaned. "We're both here."

"Why can't I see in this fucking pensieve, then?" he snarled. "Was there ever a day with so much fog?"

Hermione muttered the counter-spell, and the fog started to retreat from the depths of magick where she had first summoned it.

In a few minutes, most of the fog cleared, but a slight mist remained. This was not a part of her enchantment. Hermione looked around, and her heart almost stopped. She found herself in a field, and when she recognized where she was, she fell to her knees. Oh Merlin. No.

Eight years had passed, and she still had nightmares about this day.

The day of the Massacre in the Forest.

It was the same misty field where that ever familiar smell of blood permeated the air.

"Oh God, no. No. NO! It can't be!" Hermione whispered. She tried every spell she could think of to escape this memory. This was one episode of her life that she did not want to repeat.

"What are you doing?" Draco demanded at her frantic incantations.

"We need to get out of here," Hermione nearly shrieked. "We need to stop this memory."

Draco snorted slightly. "More of your secrets, you clandestine bitch? What have you done here that makes you so nervous? Some tryst, maybe, with someone forbidden." He grinned maliciously, teeth gleaming despite the mist.

Without warning, Hermione whirled around him, her curly hair fanning out in the motion. "You damned fool! Look at the field and tell me that this is a place to have a tryst."

Draco did as she told and turned around, the nasty smirk still playing on the corners of his lips. But when the field greeted him, all signs of mirth disappeared and horrified fascination colored his face.

Bodies carpeted the open field. The battle had occurred in this exact place. Ministry members allied with the Order of Phoenix had been evacuating from the abandoned base of Point Echo when they were ambushed by over a hundred Death Eaters waiting near the forest.

A huge coincidence with even greater consequences.

"What…why…?" Draco stuttered.

Her answer was hollow. "It's called the Massacre in the Forest."

He whipped around to face her, but Hermione nodded her head toward a certain point in the field. "Look."

There, a black hooded figure walked through the field, stepping over and on top of the corpses with complete disregard for the dead, it seemed.

The figure seemed to regard the field around him, posture stiff and shaking. Another figure, this one in robes of deep red, emerged into the memory, smaller and more delicate, and stood next to the larger one.

They began to speak, it seemed. Soon, their conversation escalated into a row. The red-robed one screamed something and fell to her knees on the blood-soaked field.

Draco walked closer toward the couple, but Hermione grabbed his arm.

"You will never be able to let go," she warned him.

He shrugged her off and approached the two robed figures of the past.

"It was what we had to do," the black-robed one said, his voice worn but still determined. Draco's eyes narrowed slightly. The voice seemed too familiar. "We agreed that there would be consequences."

The red-robed figure, the one who had fallen to the ground, began to cry. Her small body trembled violently with her sobbing. "No. No, nonononononononono!" she screamed, covering her ears and shaking her head. Her companion wrapped his arms around her tightly, yelling at her to pull herself together.

"We're murderers! We're traitors! We're worse than both of them!" the girl shrieked.

Draco jerked. Her voice... He heard it so many times in his worst nightmares.

Her companion pulled her up to her feet and held her until her frantic screaming reduced itself to quiet sobs. Despite his cool façade, the black-robed figure's shoulders were also shaking, and it was not difficult to guess that he was crying as well.

When Draco turned toward Hermione, she was in no better shape, her hand covering her lips and her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Suddenly, the red-robed girl pushed away her companion, causing him to splatter down onto the bloody ground and soak the back of his robes. The hood fell down to his back, as did the girl's, and Draco took in a sharp breath.

The two…were them.

Hermione in the robes of red. Draco himself in the black.

Visions of themselves almost ten years ago.

Eyes still so much older than they were.

Behind him, Draco heard Hermione breathe out and whisper for forgiveness to whatever god she believed in.

"What have we done, Malfoy?" past-Hermione sobbed. "What have we done? All – all these innocent people… Dead… Cold… Why? Because of us. We're covered in the blood of the hundreds dead. Because of us!"

Past-Draco stood up shakily. "Shut up, stupid Granger. We did we what we had to do. We've done worse if you think about it –"

"I've had enough!" past-Hermione screamed. "I can't do this anymore – this filthy lying, betraying…"

Past-Draco walked over to his companion and lifted her quivering chin. He placed an open-mouthed kiss on her moist lips, which she fervently returned until she seemed to grip where she was and who she was kissing. She pushed him away, weakly spitting in his face as the tears continued to roll down her red cheeks.

"MacNair is dead. So are Goyle, the two Bones brother, and Snape." Draco returned to Hermione, holding his face between his hands as if she were a china doll, unfazed by her previous hostility. "Those of power…they are almost all dead. Then we won't have to fight anymore. We won't have to lie anymore. We're smarter than them – we've been smarter since the beginning."

Hermione hiccupped. "The two giant whales fighting… We watch until they both bleed to death…"

"Then we will be the rulers of the ocean. That's my girl," Draco whispered, wiping the corners of her eyes with his fingertips. "Don't back out on me now, Granger. I can't do this without you."

Draco turned to Hermione, his face pallid. Hermione could not face him. It was what both of them did together, but Hermione could not help but feel shame at such a raw display of desperation.

"Oh my God," past-Hermione whispered. She raised her finger to point toward a spot in the field. "Malfoy. Someone survived."

They both rushed toward the designated place and fell to their knees, lifting bodies until they reached the one that had been moaning. Past-Hermione gasped. Past-Draco's face turned stony.

Ronald Weasley. His face was blackened by the fire, his skin blistered, and body and robes smeared with blood, but they recognized him easily. With the weight pulled off his chest, he breathed in and began to howl in agony, face contorted in pain and body convulsing as if in shock. He was hurt badly. His left kneecap was nonexistent and all that kept his shin connected to his thigh was a fleshy piece of tendon. "Water," he cried. "Give me water…"

Hermione levitated him all the way toward a flatter and hidden area of old Point Echo. Death Eaters of Ministry-Order troops were bound to show up soon, and they had to get away. Hermione refused to leave without Ron.

The two outsiders viewed this memory, one captivated yet sickened, the other just sickened to see it over again. They followed their two past selves through the field and into the marsh of old abandoned Point Echo.

Past-Hermione had been diligent in caring for Ron. She had wrapped up his knee, or what was left of it, and fed him as much water as she could find. Past-Draco watched on from the shadows, disapproving but not able to deny her anything, especially after her earlier outburst on the field. By that time, past-Draco had observed many tendencies of the human psyche, especially what would cause it to break. His partner was at a breaking point now, so he indulged her as much as he could stomach.

Ron fell asleep soon after.

Past-Hermione sat next to him until she was sure he was resting. Then she turned toward past-Draco, her eyes red-rimmed from the shock and the crying. "Malfoy…"

He held her to him, allowing the stray tears to drop.

The memory then faded, the fog wrapping around them again, but the two outsiders did not leave the pensieve. Draco turned toward Hermione for an answer to which she responded, "I had fallen asleep."

No sooner had the words left her mouth, they were back in the swamp again, though it was considerably darker. Past-Draco was standing over the prone Ronald Weasley, though he was not in the same spot that Hermione had placed him. Past-Hermione sat up quickly and crawled toward the two, horrified to see that Draco had drawn his wand against Ron.

"Malfoy!" she shrieked. "What are you doing? Put that wand down!"

Past-Draco kept his eyes on Ron, who was fully awake by now, and growled, "Do you know what he tried to do while you were asleep, Granger? He tried to strangle you! He tried to fucking murder you!"

Hermione turned toward Ron, eyes wide. "Is this true?"

Ron did not answer but glared, eyes gleaming with unshed tears. "Traitors. All…this time…"

"Oh Ron," Hermione whispered, slumping onto the ground. He could not have hurt her more if he had plunged a dagger into her chest. "Forgive me, but I had to. I couldn't – "

Suddenly, Ron's eyes gleamed and his hand shot out toward her hair. Gripping a fist-full of her unruly locks, he dragged her head towards himself as the other hand searched for her wand. Hermione screamed, demanding that he let go, that he forgive her, that she was sorry.

Suddenly, Ron released her hair and Hermione looked up to find Draco's foot digging deeply in Ron's injured knee. He screamed, shouting out curses and flailing his arms against Draco's leg. Hermione, once gaining perspective on what Draco was doing, screamed at him to stop, that he was hurting Ron.

This time, Draco ignored her completely.

"You filth!" Draco roared, adding to the insanity of the night. "You should have fucking died back there! Rats should be feeding on your sorry corpse! Filthy excuse for a wizard! You're worse than all of us – you're worse than Mudbloods!"

"Stop it, Malfoy. STOP IT RIGHT NOW! GET OFF HIM!" Hermione yelled, clawing at his leg.

Draco's foot slid off Ron's demolished knee cap, but he had hardly spent his fury.

"You blood-traitor. You fucking blood-traitor!" Draco was getting hysterical. "Your whole disgusting family revolts me! Your kind is what drives people like my father and MacNair and Goyle to follow around a half-dead corpse like lost dogs! Filthy blood-traitors. You weren't even born like them, and yet you still go against us!"

Past-Hermione's eyes widened. Oh God. She couldn't believe she was hearing this.

"Your kind, so weak in your insipid morals. You turn against your own kind, trying to overthrow all that we built. And what happens? Some fuckwit half-blood maniac comes along and exploits every one, making us his disposable puppets! You may be pureblooded, but you are so foul to me. Blood-traitor. You filthy, disgusting, putrid…"

"Malfoy," Hermione cut in sharply. "That is enough."

Draco narrowed his eyes and. He bent down and pulled out a small dagger from the back strap of his boot. "Yes, it is enough."

Hermione's heart jumped in her chest. "Malfoy. What are you doing?"

Ron stared at Draco with wide eyes.

"Your treachery runs deeper than any of ours," Draco whispered, eyes not leaving Ron's pallid face.

"No. Malfoy! Stop!"

"You are a fool," Ron spat out. "You…the puppet…act like they want you to. You accuse me…to quiet your own doubts…to quiet the scream…of your insignificance." His eyes followed the progress of the dagger. "Set me free."

Black amusement shaded Draco's smile. "Not a chance in hell."

Ron's eyes flickered toward Hermione. "Then I'll see you…both of you…there."

Draco's dagger slashed open Ron's throat, rendering his flesh into red ribbons. Ron tried to scream and did until those screams were reduced to strangled, gurgling sounds as Draco ripped apart Ron's vocal chords with his fingers and left the him choking on his own blood. Hermione screamed and screamed ("No. NO! RON!") throughout the whole process. She tried to pull Draco off her friend, but she threw her back with a swipe of his arm, knocking her into a tree where she crumbled from the force of the impact on the back of her head. But Hermione refused to close her eyes as he friend died in front of her, even as the dizziness in her head overtook her. She at least owed him that much.

There was too much blood. Too much human flesh. Too much stink of death.

When Draco finished the business, Hermione was already numb, inside and out. Her fisted hands bled where she her nails had dug into her palm. Her throat felt raw, as if Draco had slashed her neck, not Ron's.

The night was silent for a long while. Crickets did not sing. The river did not follow its course. Ron lay on the swampy ground, unrecognizable now with his blood-streaked face frozen in that pained, horror-stricken mask. That great, gaping hole where his neck should have been steamed even in this muggy heat.

"You're mad, you know that?" Hermione told him dizzily as she struggled to keep consciousness, her voice deflated and empty.

Draco stared at her, stringy pieces of Ron's flesh caught in his hair and his pale face soaked with a splashes of Ron's pure, special blood. It seemed red, not blue, to Hermione. It looked like the same blood that everyone else had, only with generations of wizards and witches to endorse it. But they were ghosts and long gone now, so what did that matter?

They did not speak for days after that episode.

The world swirled around the outsiders, and the pensieve released them.

…

They both found themselves in Hermione's quarters a few seconds later. Draco's face was pale, his expression pinched, his fists clenched. He was shaking. Badly. Hermione offered him a blanket, but he refused with a curt shake of his head.

She did not know what else she could say or do.

"When did you put that memory into the pensieve?" Draco finally said, his voice deep and hoarse.

Hermione hesitated slightly before answering. "Two years into the war. Almost eight years ago."

Draco nodded curtly. "Has anyone else seen this? Do they know…do they know that I was responsible for that man's death?"

She shook her head. "The memories here have only been witnessed by my eyes. Now yours."

His breaths were loud and shaky. His forehead looked moist. Hermione grasped his clammy, trembling hand, but Draco pulled away, rejecting her offer of comfort. "How many people have we…killed?"

The question was a difficult. So was the truth. "Thousands."

The revelation was either too much for Draco or he didn't believe her. Either way, he left her quarters, shoulders hunched and strides unsure. Hermione watched him leave and fell down onto her bed.

She needed to finish packing, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She crawled under her blankets and brought her knees to her chest. She lay in that fetal position, feeling more vulnerable than ever, and kept her eyes closed.

…

The deal that Draco had proposed was a simple one.

They were to leave Hogwarts together, using their connections on both sides to their advantage to advance the war. When both sides crippled each other to the point of no recovery, they would both emerge from the ashes of the war and claim domination over the wizard society in their own fashion.

But despite the grand planning and scheming, what they truly wanted was to just survive.

Draco was to receive the Dark Mark and everything that came along with it: a mar on his skin that allied him with what he hated and feared most (though Draco never admitted that). Hermione had been orphaned in the most severe way: Dumbledore, the one man she had trusted to protect her, had been murdered during her sixth year, and her parents were both killed in the beginning of her seventh year. She had been lucky that she was at Hogwarts, or they would have gotten her as well, though Hermione never figured out who they were and did not get to exact whatever revenge she promised for herself.

Difficult times are always the most unbearable for those who do not belong to any party in power. In Hermione's case, she was the hunted victim on both sides. Even those in the Ministry secretly eyed her as if she were vermin, as if she were the reason that this war began. Harry was constantly sent into hiding when she needed his companionship the most, and Ron, despite his efforts, ended up downplaying everything that was happening. Ignorance was bliss, at least for him, and it was his way of coping.

Hermione understood him to some extent. It was easier for Ron: he was pureblooded and not first on the Death Eaters' priority list, though his parents were well known muggle sympathizers.

It really was a lose-lose situation for both of her and Draco. They just took the path that seemed more do-or-die than suffer-and-die.

Hermione had been loath to agree with Draco's plan, but she was tired of being alone, tired of fighting to live each and every day by herself. She desired companionship more than anything else, and Hermione knew that in this game of life-and-death, Draco would always look out for her, even if he hated her for being muggle-born.

Using the funds Draco started to siphon out of his personal Gringotts account little by little, they hid from the outside world and buried their lives around lies. Hermione still kept correspondence with Harry and some of the other Order members, managing to gleam information from them. Draco did the same with his father, Crabbe, Goyle, and a few of the other Slytherins. They would then gather together their information and calculate which move would benefit them the best.

Sometimes, they lived together. Sometimes, they lived apart, even in different countries. But Draco would always keep contact. On her pillow, on her desk stand, on her vanity he would always leave an envelope with only her name written in the middle. Inside there would be a short note, something that no one else would take the time to analyze, but would mean the world to Hermione.

He was always with her with those notes. She never felt alone. Hermione had guarded those little scraps of paper like sheets of gold.

For the three years of the war, they had played an elaborate, dangerous game of chess.

But Draco changed, as did Hermione.

He became more of a fanatic, bit by bit losing the cool-headedness that was so crucial to their survival. Hermione herself felt herself slip, exhaustion racking her body like a seizure.

The Massacre in the Forest had cut the last strand of their sanity.

The history books called it an amazing coincidence that the two armies had met. The tabloids called it an elaborate conspiracy that the two just happened to be there at that particular time. In this case, the tabloids were more accurate than the history books.

Draco and Hermione had been planning this move for five months, tracking Death Eater and Order movements. Hermione had been keeping a close eye on the Ministry at the time, and Draco, though refusing the Dark Mark, still kept his tight circle of Death Eater friends. A little tip here and a little note there opened up so much possibility. If the two learned one thing during the war, it was the power of suggestion.

They were both tired of the war, so they planned this: two great armies with many of the important players would meet and battle. It would be a massacre, but it would end the war more quickly.

It was amazing how cold and ruthless they had once been.

After Ron's death, however, their relationship deteriorated.

Draco was more aloof toward her and much more zealous about the murdering, about the end, about the aftermath. Though he was never violent with Hermione, he frightened her so deeply that even his notes failed to comfort her. Hermione knew Draco inside and out, and she was sure it was likewise with Draco with her.

She put up with him as he had put up with her. It was a difficult and painful process, but they remained united – until Hermione committed her final and ultimate betrayal.

That was when Hermione began to smoke.

…

The following day after their fateful dive into the pensieve was another hot one, though the humidity had almost dried out and the cold lingered in the air when the sun set. Autumn was arriving.

Hermione finished packing, wrapped up her observations, and went to bid her farewells to Headmistress McGonagall.

The two women, this time, were seated across from each other at the empty Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, sipping iced tea.

"I hope Hogwarts will receive a good report," the headmistress began conversationally.

Hermione smiled tiredly. "All teachers have passed the inspections. I still need to write the official report, but I'll be sure to mention just how competent the professors here are."

The headmistress snorted into her cup. "I hope that report won't be a long replication of what you wrote for Professor Malfoy."

Hermione choked on her tea and her face turned red. "Oh. You…read that?"

The headmistress flashed Hermione one of her rare smiles. "Old rivalries die hard, don't they?"

Hermione grinned bashfully, and they finished their tea and their cakes quietly.

When the headmistress stood, Hermione did as well. The headmistress eyed Hermione inquisitively.

"I don't know what you've done during the war, Miss Granger, and I suppose I'll never know until you choose to tell me."

Guilt overtook Hermione for a second. But then she saved face. "It was a difficult time for everyone, and I'm not certain I feel prepared to recount my experiences. Forgive me."

The headmistress nodded sternly. "Miss Granger, I know you do not have as much trust in me as you did in Albus, but I want you to know that if you ever need help, you always will have me at Hogwarts."

A sign of a peace. "Thank you."

After kissing the headmistress's cheek, Hermione prepared to leave. But then, the professor stopped her with a question.

"Have you faced your ghosts, Miss Granger?"

Hermione paused, considering her words before answering. "I'm still trying."

"That pensieve…" the headmistress started, "I did not find it. Professor Malfoy did."

Hermione nodded. "Yes. I had suspected."

"He seemed to know so little and so much at the same time." The headmistress's smile was a bit crooked. "Do you know how a phoenix can die young, Miss Granger?"

"No. How?"

"It loses its innocence too early in its life."

Hermione let the words sink in. She then nodded and left.

…

As soon as the snow thawed and the days got bearably warm, Draco Malfoy went out to the quidditch fields to watch the sunset. Despite the fact that she had left over half a year ago, he still hoped she would be there, smoking her cigarette and being her usual bitchy self. He hated to admit it, but the little twit had grown on him. Of course it was not that surprising, considering how they had knew each other for so many years before.

Memories were starting to flood back to him. What he thought originally as impulses and brief scenes of his life gradually pieced together like a quilt blanket. He continued to gather further insights from his dreams and from meeting people who had once known him.

He had waken up in the hospital in May two years before, and he had never felt so utterly lost. The Mediwizards were speaking in the language he spoke, but Draco could not understand to what they referred when they asked him questions about some dark lord and people who ate death.

What he had learned those lonely days were that his mother had passed away during the time he had "slept" (as they called it) and that his father died during the war.

All the Mediwizards could conclude was that Draco had been a soldier, a fighter for either the Ministry or the now-scattered Order of Phoenix, judging by the fact that he had no Dark Mark, and that he was hit with a powerful spell that rendered him into a coma for nearly six years.

All Draco could think was that he was alone, and that was the most desolate feeling in the world.

Until the letter from the headmistress came.

She had called him to Hogwarts to teach as a Potions professor. Outside of the Mediwizards who cared for him, no one knew of his mastery of potions. She had to have been observing him, but Draco was so glad to get out of the hospital that he did not care if the old witch had been spying on him while he was in the shower.

By the time he had reached Hogwarts, he had a rough sketch of his background. He had been the one-time heir to one of the grandest estates in the magical world, which was now almost non-existent thanks to war-time legal measures and his father's disastrous pillaging of their family's resources. No wonder his mother passed away so quickly. He was a student at a school called Hogwarts, smart and able but not brilliant. Most of his companions fought on the losing side of the war and were either dead, rotting in Azkaban, or in the mental institution. Life seemed gray and colorless. No one was left, not even him, it seemed – he never felt as if had fully waken from his sleep and it was as if he were a waif, caught between the dream world and the real world.

After attending daily Potions seminars, Draco had taken to wandering around the grounds of Hogwarts, sometimes feeling a rush of familiarity in one place and nothing in another. He found the pensieve on one of his expeditions, and when he found that he could not look into the memories, he handed it over to the headmistress.

That same pensieve was next to him right now, capped with a wooden lid. He held Hermione's letter in his hands.

Malfoy,

Sometimes to fight the ghosts of the past, it's better to attack them straight on. At least, for me it was. I don't know about you, but I want to give you a chance to have that attack for yourself.

I created this pensieve one year into the war and continued to guard my most important, most difficult memories for the next seven years until I buried it in the Hogwarts ruins underground. How ironic that you're the one who dug it up and now you're the one who will have it last.

I've altered the mechanics of the pensieve. The memories will only be visible to you and will show themselves only once. Then they will disappear forever. When the basin is empty, it will self-destruct. There is no time limit – you can view one memory a decade, if you want.

Those times were difficult for me, Malfoy. And they must have been for you too. I know you must hate me for all that I've put you through, but the only thing that I ask is not that you understand but that you at least try to sympathize. I know I'm not pureblooded. I know I'm not even half-blooded. I am only me, and after twenty-seven years of my life, I accept and embrace the fact that that's all I'll ever be.

-Granger

Only one memory remained. Draco saved this for last for a reason. It was Hermione's final memory of her and him together.

He hesitated to view it. Perhaps he was afraid that after this, the basin would explode and there would be nothing left. He would have the memories, but what good were they when he couldn't change anything about them?

Through Hermione's pensieve, he lived through betrayal and murder, adoration and kisses. They were refugees for three years, and it was surprising that the furthest they had gotten was kissing in bed together. He had urges to touch her skin, though not just for carnal reasons. Sometimes at night, he laid in his bed, his heart strangely aching for some reason. The pain was real. He was awakening, and it was hard, but now he saw in colors – the vibrant red of blood, the soft yellow her favorite roses, the glittering brown of her eyes.

He could not deter himself any further.

Draco lifted the lid to the basin. As always, a curling mist creeped out of the top. With a deep breath, Draco dipped the tip of his wand into the basin, and closed his eyes, feeling himself get sucked into Hermione's final memory of them together.

…

Draco found himself in the ever-familiar swamp that had been Point Echo – the place where everything happened.

He heard voices – undoubtedly they belonged to Hermione and him.

"You're mad! You're completely, utterly mad!" past-Hermione screamed.

Past-Draco's looked up at the girl, his lips corked in a twisted smile. "You're growing weak. It had to be done."

"They were children."

"They were twelve and sixteen, and their father was an important member of the Death Eater ranks."

Hermione flailed her arms around like a shot bird would its wings. "What Death Eater rank? They are all dead! Let the Ministry officials and bounty hunters deal with them. As for us, let's leave the country. I can't stand being here anymore."

Draco wouldn't answer her. He buried his head in his hands. He was a mess. His hair reached down to his chin, and he was badly in need of a shave. Hermione's face was a mask of pity. He hardly slept. He hardly ate. All he concentrated on was ending the war, killing anyone and everyone who would get in the way of his ascension to glory.

He held such bitter hate for the Death Eaters, the Ministry, the now-scattered Order of the Phoenix…

It seemed as if sustaining that hate was all he lived for, and they both were slowly dying because of it.

Draco watched the scene, his face grim. This part of his past was new to him, but he found he understood everything that his ruined past-self had felt. The disillusion, the lazy bloodlust, the desire to finish without flaw something worked on so meticulously for three years…

"Malfoy."

He did not lift his head up from his arms.

"Leave the country with me. Let's start a new life somewhere else, away from this dirty war. The wizard society is completely destroyed here in England, completely changed beyond imagination. Places like Switzerland that have remained neutral – it must be so much more stable there and –"

Past-Draco stood, drew his wand, and performed a binding spell on Hermione in but a second. The battle tactics the war had forced him to master remained with him in his instincts.

"Don't you ever talk about that again, you understand me?" Draco seethed, a murderous gleam in his eyes. "I have not wallowed in the darkness with a filthy Mudblood for three years to flee with my tail between my legs. I will not have it. I will rise as Draco Malfoy, a man with the power and resources to make every person in the wizard community tremble at the sound of my footsteps. I have defeated two great armies. As soon as this war is finished, I will emerge into society with you behind me to win support of the Mudblood crowd, do you understand me?"

Hermione nodded the best she could under his binding spell. He released her. He glared at her for a few more seconds, but then his confident expression rapidly fell to that of desperation. He collapsed on top of Hermione, begging forgiveness for his cruel treatment of her, for his temporary madness, to which she nodded and said she would readily forgive.

He didn't even notice when she slipped her hand into his robe pocket and slid out his wand.

Draco found himself suddenly pushed away. When he regained his composure, he saw Hermione standing upright, eyes blazing and her lips drawn in a thin line, with the tip of his own wand pointed at his throat and her wand gripped in her other hand.

Realization stuck Draco. His eyes widened, his face contorting from hurt to defeat to anger in a span of seconds.

"I can't let you continue on like this, Draco." Hermione's voice was low. She spoke his given name like a curse, as if it gave her power to carry through what she must.

Draco's face was dark with fury. He wasn't sure he completely understood, but he was still very angry. "You little lying bitch. YOU FUCKING TRAITOR BITCH!" He lunged toward her, but Hermione cast the binding spell on him quickly. She too learned enough of combat skills during the war.

Tears rolled down her face, but her determined expression did not change. "I'm so sorry."

He jerked and wriggled on the ground, giving Hermione's spell a test, but she maintained her ground.

"You're completely mad, Draco," she whispered. "At this rate, you're going to become like him, like Voldemort. Another tyrant. Another mass murderer. And I know you can, that you will. You're too smart. You're too ruthless. Oh God, how did it come to this?"

"You terrible whore. After all that we've been through, when you've finished using me, you throw me away, do you?" He bit out a harsh laugh that seemed choked with sobs. He too understood the reasoning behind her words, but the disappointment of arriving so far yet tripping so completely at the finish line destroyed him.

"You mean the world to me," Hermione whispered, his voice trembling. She raised her wand.

"You mean nothing to me," Draco spat out. "You're nothing but a back-stabbing, lying whore."

But Hermione ignored those words. She hardened her gaze. "It was nice working with you." Her voice was clipped, as if she bit back so much more of what she wanted to say.

His smile was that of vengeance and incredible insult. His eyes were unreadable.

"I'll be seeing you again."

Then the world went back. Hermione had closed her eyes, his hand trembling in her hand as she cast her spell. Before the future-Draco knew it, he was back on the quidditch stands, silent tears rolling down his own cheeks, though everything was just as how he remembered.

…

The field of barley swayed along with the wind like a tranquil ocean of gold. Spring was soon coming to an end, and summer was beginning to arrive. Once again, Hermione had fled to her countryside sanctuary without so much as a word to Harry.

Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. They were still friends – the closest friends as two orphaned people could be – but they lost so much of the deep intimacy they had once shared. She never told him what she and Draco had done, but Hermione got the feeling that Harry suspected her of something so terrible that it was better off not delving deeper. Hermione could not leave Harry because he wouldn't leave her. They were two survivors of the filthiest war, and though the paths they had taken were completely different, they understood the unique pain of being so alone.

He too was a victim, but a victim of the expectations of so many who used him as they would a tool. How Harry Potter had managed to destroy Voldemort was wrapped in mystery and controversy. Harry had done terrible things in the war too. He had emerged changed, just like the rest of the soldiers. He also had his secrets.

They were no saints, and they both had dark pasts. Perhaps that's why they could sustain this fragile camaraderie.

But Hermione was still lonely. She had told Harry virtually nothing of her part during the war. She never told him the truth behind Ron's death. She didn't think he'd ever forgive her if he knew.

For probably the millionth time, Hermione wondered if Draco had gotten the letter and the pensieve. She was curious and nervous. Would he view the memories? What would be think of them? He must be furious.

In the end, it was she who fucked him over the most. The Death Eaters had nothing on her.

Hermione closed her eyes and set her tea cup on the saucer.

Would he want to claim his revenge?

Would he want justice?

Hermione didn't know how she would respond when the time came, but whatever he wanted, let him come and claim it. No more tricks, no more betrayal. She made the mistake when she left him alive.

That final curse was supposed to kill him.

Hermione did not understand what she had done incorrectly. She herself had checked his pulse, and there was none. Had she known, deep down, that he wasn't dead? She should have checked more carefully. Draco, after all, was not an easy person to kill.

Instead, he had ended up in a coma for almost six years and woke up with his memories locked deeply away. A curious blessing and opportunity for healing that she, Hermione thought wryly, never got.

Right after Hermione had left Hogwarts after her inspections, she asked a few of her sources at St. Mungo's and managed to speak with some of the Mediwizards that attended to Draco during and after his coma. She picked up his file case, which the Mediwizards assured was very interesting. She would be the judge of that… When she ever got around to reading it. The file folder was currently on the kitchen counter, unopened.

Perhaps some things were best left in the past, untouched, and she should try to figure out how to manage her present.

Hermione took another sip of her tea, for once able to enjoy the silence.

TAP! TAP!

Or maybe not.

She thought about ignoring it, realizing it was probably another owl from Harry telling her to get back to London. But when the tapping became insistent, unstopping, Hermione groaned, lugged herself up from her chair, and opened the door.

An owl hopped in, and Hermione stroked the top of its head after untying the small envelope from its feet. She went to the kitchen to fetch water, which it took greedily in gulps, and Hermione turned back to the letter.

The envelope was a large, standard office-sized, and yellow. She tore it open, expecting a stack of official Ministry papers, but raised her eyebrows when another small little envelope fell out and landed on the ground.

No. It couldn't be… Could it?

Hermione bent down and picked up the envelope. Just as she had suspected, her name was written on the front, neat and elegant. Only her name. No return address.

With trembling hands, she carefully tore open the flap in the back and took out the paper. It was a note. A short little note that Hermione would guard like a sheet of gold.

"A phoenix dies and turns to ashes if it loses its innocence too early in life.

(But what emerges from those ashes?)"

Hermione yelped as the note burst into flames, this time not green but red and gold, sharp and brilliant like the feathers of a phoenix. The parchment crinkled, greying as it burned, the ink blackening. The door to her cabin suddenly swung opened and breeze swept up the ashes of the note.

Without thinking, without her shoes, Hermione ran outside, following the progress of the ash. It led her toward the field of barley, toward the forest, toward the darkness of the night where the stars twinkled so much more brightly and the moon shined so much more clearly than when she looked up at them from her cabin.

She knew he was there before she even saw him.

He waited for her, dressed in black slacks and a white Oxford shirt with a cloak of dark, glimmering gray thrown over his shoulders. His hair gleamed, his skin glowed, and Hermione thought he was a prince from the stars.

She slowed and approached him cautiously, her breathing heavy and quick. "You're here."

His nodded toward her. "So I am."

Her throat closed up. His voice – his cool, clear voice; it was like a dream. "Have you…have you seen them? The memories, I mean."

The look in his eyes was sufficient enough of an answer.

"Are you angry? Have you come for revenge?"

"I don't know why I've come, really. I don't even know what I'll do," Draco said quietly.

The remained, standing a few feet from each other, in forced formality and politeness.

Until Hermione could take it no more.

She ran to him, not caring about anything – not the fact that he must be very angry, that he must want some sort of vengeance, that he was still loath to be intimate with someone he had just newly "met".

Discarding all of her previous worries, her cares, her guilt, Hermione threw her arms around him, tears springing to her eyes, and he held her tightly to him, digging his face into the curve of her shoulder. They remained like that for a long time, holding each other as if they would never go.

Even as night gave way to dawn, they remained, as the burnt remnants of the note that carried words of forgiveness and of hope for the future glimmered in the waning glow of the moon – those few precious words, all written in the ashes.

finis

Fic Request

BRIEFLY describe what you'd like to receive: Exploration of pureblood pride: I do not want a Pureblood pride (equals) racism (equals) evol simplistic puerility. Give me substance, give me complexity.

What rating would you prefer?: any

Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): Fluff with happily married domestic bliss and a dozen kids and ickle Uncles Won and Hawy. Don't mind fluff, as long it has bite and is not inane.

End Notes: This has been one of the hardest things I have ever written! I truly didn't expect such a request, and being the perfectionist that I am, I was trying to incorporate the perfect story with the request. It all ended up being a huge mess, and I thank Tara and Jenn so much for granting me an extension to completely re-edit my story.

Agarttha, your request definitely tested my abilities. It was a theme that I really did not explore well enough despite all of my fanfics in the HP fandom, much to my chagrin. But I did learn a lot from writing this fic, and I really, really hope that you enjoyed it and got what you wanted out of it.