A/N: Hello! This is my first submission to the world of fanfiction, just a little one shot. Hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Don't own them, sadly.

Rain cascaded down, a waterfall, an unceasing torrent. Time slipped by, riding upon the water, seeming to pass by in a torrent, and yet truly moving so slowly, so very slowly. He watched this, thinking of his family, his father, a slobbering buffoon that couldn't even recognize his wife or son, imprisoned for following a crazed megalomaniac. His mother, slowly, slowly but surely, drinking away the family fortune with her high priced wines, her constant state of inebriation. And himself, a seventeen year old, charged with making sure this didn't happen, that the Malfoys stayed rich, stayed respected, stayed everything that they already weren't. He glanced at the dagger in his hand, silver, the handle in the shape of a serpent, its eye a small emerald.

An instrument worthy of the destruction of the last Malfoy, he thought, turning it over and over and over again within his hand. The emerald that formed the snake's eye glittered in the ambient light of the castle, the castle that had been the closest to a home he had ever had, but even it had fallen short of his expectations. He continued to watch the rain, flipping the knife around within his hand.

His father. Would he understand, when they told him? Would he understand that his son, his heir, was dead? Would the man realize that the Malfoys were dead, gone, a line of purebloods wiped out forever? Probably not.

His mother. She would understand, but it would kill her. This was the thought that made him hesitate, stand here, listening to the sound of the rain drumming on the stone castle, toying with the knife that would end it all. His mother cared. That was the problem. She cared about him, Draco, as well as his father, slobbering buffoon that he was.

He looked at the knife again, glittering, taunting him to do it, to get it over with. What would he care about a drunken mother when he was buried, beneath the ground, away from the pains of emotion, away from the tortures of life?

He moved the knife, tracing, feather-light, the path it would take along his skin, opening a vein that would spill all of his 'pure' blood upon the earth, mixing with the mud.

A smile, self deprecating, stretched his mouth. How appropriate, he thought, that in death, I would become a mudblood? It's the 'pure' who are truly dirty; truly deserve to be treated as animals.

His thoughts returned to his mother, his mother, who had committed no crime besides loving her husband and son, no crime other than caring too deeply, to strongly, to leave them.

The blade continued to trace its future path, up and down his arm, slowly, caressingly. A shiver of something ran up his arm, up his spine, and down to his legs. Fear? Anticipation? He didn't even know. His gaze returned, unfocused, to the waterfall of rain before him. His mind went numb, to numb to think, or act. The blade continued to trace the vein in his arm.

"Who left this door open?" A voice from within the castle said.

His brain was in hyper drive, so focused on his thoughts that it was numb. He heard the voice, but it didn't register, didn't break the numbness.

"Hello? Is someone out here? You're not allowed to be out this time of night!" A bushy head peeked out the door, nearly missing him, but catching sight of his pale hair at the last moment. She stepped out, hands on her hips. She hadn't seen the knife, yet.

"Malfoy? You may be Head Boy, but you're not allowed outside this late, either."

He didn't reply, didn't acknowledge that he had heard her.

"Malfoy?" She saw the knife, still tracing, up and down, up and down. "What are you doing with that? Malfoy, answer me."

He blinked, coming out of his trance. He gazed at her, not bothering to put up his façade of indifference, of coldness. The pain in his eyes was such that her own widened, such that she took a step back.

"Draco?" she asked, unsure.

"Granger," he said, slowly. Up and down, ceaselessly along the vein. "I just – I can't do this."

"Do what?" she asked, watching the glinting blade, mesmerized by it. She knew 'what,' but wanted to keep him talking, wanted to try and think of a way to get the knife away from him. He read her as easily as any book.

"I can't repair the damage my father did to the Malfoy name, can't deal with my mother, can't live my pathetic little life any more, pretending that everything is okay, everything is fine."

"Draco…" she bit her lip, faltering. "It may seem rough now, but things will get better…"

"That's all you can offer? A cliché? You don't even know me, Granger. You don't know my family, what's happening behind the scenes. This won't get better, Granger. It would take a miracle."

"Please, give me the knife. Whatever it is, it's not worth dying over."

He looked at the knife, still tracing its path. The eye glinted at him again. What are you waiting for? it seemed to say. Why do you prolong this agony?

"It takes courage to die," Granger said, slowly, softly. "But it takes even more, to live."

"Too bad courage is a Gryffindor trait," he said, but the blade paused in its ceaseless journey, now resting on its side against his arm.

"There's courage in all of us, Draco," she said, barely audible above the crashing water.

To this, he did not respond immediately, turning his gaze back to the water in front of him. What was once a waterfall was now a trickle, a mere drizzle. He sensed, rather than saw, Granger moving closer to him.

"I don't know if I have enough courage to live, Hermione," he whispered.

She touched his arm, the one holding the knife. "Let me help you," she answered.

His eyes shifted from the rain, to the blade, to her. His silvery orbs bored into her copper eyes, seeking pity, something that would belie her wish to help him, but he found nothing. Only warmth and concern, true concern, for him, for Draco Malfoy, hater of Gryffindors, of Mudbloods, of everything that she, Hermione Granger, was.

His eyes shifted once more to the knife, the serpent seemed to hiss – at him or at the mudblood, it was hard to say. It was, after all, a Malfoy family heirloom. He lifted it from his skin, slowly, oh so slowly, and flipped it in his hand again, this time so that he grasped it, carefully, by the point.

The girl smiled at him, a real smile, and to both of their surprise, she kissed him. Long and hard, passionate and deep, they kissed until their lungs burned and they had to come up for air, or else have that whole episode be for naught. They pulled away, a fraction of an inch, resting their foreheads together.

"Hermione," Draco whispered.

"Mm?"

"Thank you," he said, really meaning it.