SWEDISHA/N: Well, this is actually the longest chapter in this tale so enjoy a, slightly longer, slightly intense, chapter of Counting Days!

.swedish.a/n: The Fanfiction ERROR! W.. t... no cursing but F! Alas, after a annoying week and some mixing with the bug. Here we are, publishing. nice.

Chapter eleven:
Last Day

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[Day 28]

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When Draco first woke up his instincts told him that he woke up in a completely wrong place, time and way. While opening his eyes, trying to adjust to the light he was bathing in, he wondered if this was heaven or simply a horrible wake up call. The ladder was much truer, he realized, when he let the sight sink in. In front of him was grass, a rock, a blurry sight far away of something red eyed trying to adjust to the sunlight and then there was his hand clasping someone else's hand. After blinking a couple of times to adjust properly he saw the grass, the rock, the blurry sight of Jean looking as sick as he felt and then he saw his hand that was clasping Hermione's hand.

Draco had never gotten up from a bed, or any wooden floor, that fast. He took a few, hasty steps away from the scene of the peacefully sleeping Hermione and blinked a couple of times to grasp what his eyes had been telling him. She was there and it had dawned to him that last night's events could be traced back to him and only him but before he could think much further about it the trees rattled. Out of them came the robust, red-haired Weasel that Draco had agreed to accept as part-human comparing to the rest of them.

"Good morning," Draco said and tried not to look so guilty. "Jean is almost waking up," he added and pointed towards where Jean was out of reach.

"How is close-to-supper time a 'good morning' saying time? Hey, by the way, I like you, Draco," Charlie said instead with a poisonous, slightly hangover tone. "Don't mess that up."

"How can I mess up with Jean?" Draco said and made a pause. After yesterday he had fallen in love with Jean and knowing what would happen with Jean once he got her back home with her in England he regretted ever making a bond with the dragon.

"You're bound to mess that up," Charlie said and avoided to go further into the details concerning Jean. Draco hated knowing what Charlie meant with that. "I meant Hermione, don't mess that up."

"Yeah, yeah, I know – she's your brothers girl, no, she was your brothers girl," Draco said, shrugging the matter that he actually wouldn't dare to mess that up away. If there was something he feared more than death and Jeans flames it had to be Hermione when she was angry.

"No, not just that," Charlie said, and his voice was dangerously low. "She's everybody's girl."

Draco looked at the messy haired girl on the wooden floor a short walk away, clutching onto his jacket for warmth in her sleep. She looked so pathetically beautiful he agreed to himself, beautiful because yesterday he had chosen to kiss her, pathetically because she had not stopped him. He would not lie, she had been an exceptional kisser and he did not regret his decision for once. He had, after all, thought that his last day on earth was closing up and apart from one of the dragon taming women she was the only kissable in the area of Romania.

It was not like they were a thing that would repeat itself; he still had to follow the ethics of his bloodline and she was muggleborn and on top of that she was Hermione Granger.

He could still taste the kiss thought, it had first started out with him being physically attracted to her once she had come to find him. Then she saw him being broken without being intimidated, instead she had been as annoying as only she could be while he got a second to collect himself. After that she had dared him, at least that's how he saw it, and he had to man up, and eventually kiss her. Somewhere in her kiss, the part in which she had withdrawn and explained how stupid this was with six supporting points that she had invented on spot, he realized that there was something that attracted him more than her being a woman. He doubted that it was the know-it-all manner that she was so keen on obtaining but it made him want to kiss her to shut her up, which he did, many times. Until she forgot four of the supportive six points and had only a low murmur of the word 'irrational' left in her mouth between the small gasps of air.

Once again, collecting his thought and returning to his drawling state Draco drawled. "How can I mess up something I'm not involved in?"

"Don't get smart with me, kid," Charlie said and placed his big hand across Draco's forehead and eyes. "Shite, don't do any heavy magic, it will drain you and that's what happened –." Charlie said with sincere worry before Draco chose to interrupt.

"What are you doing?" Draco demanded, emphasizing the word what, when he felt his eyelashes pressed against his orbs. "Who knows where your paws have been?" Draco started but was interrupted by Charlie's rough hand shoving a tiny bottle of purple liquid into his cold hand.

"You're freezing, I expected you to have your own supply when coming here," Charlie said roughly. He seemed not to have taken notice of the events that just unfolded.

"Hermione broke them," Draco explained bitterly, only to be interrupted once again, this time by Jean squealing so that the birds in the close by trees fled.

"So you're on first name basis now?" Charlie asked and added, "How many days left?"

Refusing to reply to that first IQ of a Weasel question, he replied. "What do you mean, how many days?"

"You're making the poor girl fall in love with a dying man, have you ever thought about that? Whatever you're feeling she's probably feeling it ten times more, they're sensitive, women, they know so much more about the world and everything in it than we ever will," Charlie murmured with one eye on the sleeping Hermione. "You never make a woman fall in love with you if you can't offer her more than love so tell her that you're dying, Draco, because I won't."

"In love? What do you know about women?" Draco replied instead, tone hostile."Do you even care about the existence of women when there's a dragon around?"

"You would be surprised what I would do for them. I could kill and I would get away with murder, much like you're trying too," Charlie said and now looked at Jean from the far with hurting eyes. "Don't act foolish, you count the days and I count Jeans. Everybody who's on death row does, so once again, how many days?"

Draco twitched, on the short distance between them Hermione shifted, almost waking up. "Tonight, okay, I was given a month and a month is tonight."

Charlie looked at Draco, real pity in his eyes, and he placed one hand on Draco's shoulder murmuring, "that's hard, mate, you and Jean."

"Is, is she dying tonight too?" Draco asked, and the real fright that death brought him hit him hard.

"They say so," Charlie said. "But I doubt it, she's strong. You're too."

Draco felt his airways tighten. "Thanks."

Charlie gave him a weak smile. "I better go give Jean her potion," he said and shook the bucket he held in his hand. In it Draco could see a yellow looking thickness that resembled his own potion. Yellow that is the opposite of purple looked less forgiving than the soothing color of his potion, unlike his potion Jeans looked as it was about to freeze any minute. Draco sympathized with Jean that was forced to drink a whole bucket of that.

"Oh, and Draco," Charlie added while walking towards Jean that looked like a small dot from where Draco was standing.

"Yes?" Draco said and unscrewed his own bottle and downed it, frowning.

"If it weren't for you being a pale looking prick and me being a redheaded, freckled bottom we would've been good friends, wouldn't we?" Charlie asked, laughing. "You know, riding my dragons at day and using that hair product of yours at night."

"Hair product!" said a voice from behind Draco that he knew was Hermione's. "Even in the woods you carry hair products!"

Draco looked at Charlie gratefully; the wide shouldered dragon tamer that warned him about her presence. Charlie was more human than he had ever felt, he realized, with his raw honesty and his compassion. But he was a Malfoy; he was not spending his last days being angelic. He snuck the empty vial into his pocket and replied to Charlie's question. "I highly doubt our friendship, Weasley," he said with a light tone that caused Charlie to laugh even more.

After that he spun around to face Hermione who was wearing his jacket over her shoulders and a newly awaken look across her eyes. On her cheek, the right one, were patters from the grass she just got up from and a few straws of grass had tangled themselves into her mane of hair.

"What are you talking about? I have no hair products," he drawled. Although he found her to be prettier than before he realized how annoying Hermione was when she wasn't quiet. In his head, while he looked at the wild mane of Hermione, he thought that she actually should consider carrying hair products with her, everywhere.

"Sorry," Hermione said, a word that caused Draco to shiver inside with dislike. "Good morning by the way, did you have a good night's sleep?" she asked and her words were followed by an awkward silence.

They both were staring at each other both. He recapped last night evens in his head again and he was sure that she was doing so too. Just as much as he could vision the whole scenery in which the source of this awkwardness played out he knew she could. He could see her hair tangled in his fingers and her arms around his neck. He was also sure that she could hear him take those sharp inhales and see herself look at him with that look that begged for more kisses. Right now, however, there wasn't much time for staring games, Draco decided.

He had not much time to play these games now that he was actually grasping how close he was to death and now that he found out that Jean was dying in his paste. He could have spent the whole day, staring at Hermione's ordinary browns to win this silence game if he found it necessary because he had always known himself, he would not just die. It didn't just happen, when he was leaving this god forsaken place called earth he would leave with a bang, a crack or at least a dramatic 'no' following his last words. The moment was not here, not yet, but what scared him enough to take on this fight against life was Jean. He was just not so sure that Jean had the same view on life that she would want to exit life dramatically.

He collected all the courage in him and spoke. "So you kissed me yesterday, big deal," Draco said. "There, I killed the huge Hippogriff in this forest. "

"You kissed me yesterday," Hermione corrected.

Draco glared at her. "That's was what I said."

Hermione glared angrily back at him. "I'm leaving with Portkey in an hour," she announced. "Due to the oversleeping from my part I'm in a hurry to catch the last one from Romania. Either you come with me or not."

"I can't leave before midnight tonight, Jean is dying," Draco blurred out hastily.

"Oh," Hermione managed to say, and despite her attempt to keep her tone as chilly as his was during a boring read he spotted the fear and the sadness in her body language. She clutched her arms and widened her eyes slightly. "Well, I guess we can Apparate after midnight, it's not pleasant overseas but that's the only thing that will bring us back that late. I have to be back before tomorrow morning, it's work."

"Work! Is there something else you're having your way?" Draco asked with a teasing voice.

Hermione really struggled with not smiling but he could see her lips forming a narrow smile nevertheless. "Well. . . I'm having breakfast," she announced and handed him the jacket.

"During the afternoon? At this camp?" he said. "Am I the only one with a recent memory of what these guys eat?"

Hermione let out an involuntarily laughter. "You take what you get, I guess. Got any better suggestions?"

"Why, yes, I do," Draco said in a matter-of-fact manner that would make Hermione doubt her own. He handed her his jacket again because her shoulders were bare. Her skin was distracting and his thoughts involuntarily went to what Hermione get and didn't get. "We're going downtown. For dinner."

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They had been strolling the quite empty streets of the little village next to the Dragon Camp. When Draco had said 'Downtown' he had meant a vibrating city with exquisite food and expensive shops that even he only glanced at hastily before deciding that it was too much for whatever garment was in fashion. Hermione, who walked around, fascinated to an extent that he wondered if they were walking down the same street, seemed content.

Despite Draco having his finest shoes destroyed by the uneven pavement and the muddy roads he enjoyed his evening. They had been to the finest restaurant on the little village, that served the foulest hamburger he'd ever tasted, but seeing Hermione say 'mm, this is delicious' with a effort to please him had been enough to make him laugh and re-order the whole meal. After that they had been carelessly floating between the few shops where he bought Hermione a set of Silver dipped Quills despite her insisting that she didn't need anything that fancy. He considered to get her the Golden dipped Quills but it was so Gryffindor. . .

When the first chilly breeze hit them, Draco too numb with his irregular body heat to even notice, Hermione insisted on them both having tea before going back to camp. What started as a cup of hot tea escalated to five to six cups and a livid conversation about art and books. He warmed his cold hands with the cups, never really drinking it, while Hermione had to leave for the bathroom after every third cup. Their conversation brought a crowd towards them. He argued for hours about what art was while she held a heated debate with him about the importance of well written textbooks. When he couldn't be bothered to talk about that with her any longer they changed the subject, now trying to answer the riddle of life instead. It seemed to depress Hermione more than it did him, and he was the one dying.

She told him about Harry and he saw how she had hesitated with telling him this at first. When he reminded her that he had in fact had his tongue in her mouth, causing her to spit out half her tea on his white shirt before breaking into hysteric laughter, everything seemed to loosen up for them. Their conversation became lighter. He enjoyed her conversation, the way she explained her ways with hand gestures and faces and he had no regrets of spending his last day, if it should end here, in the little teashop with her. Especially when she went into a hysteric laughter when he told her about something him and Blaise had did when they were smaller or when she caused him to rethink his views when she debated over the smallest of things.

When it got late and a conversation about the sparkling fire next to them reminded them about Jean they headed back towards the road they came from, now talking about France. They walked for a while, remembering to take every turn and road correctly and pass the camp towards the wooden path towards Jean. When they entered the path, the crowns of the threes illuminated whatever light there was left on the sky. Hermione who seemed to take no notice of the darkness surrounding them but Draco felt the chills down his spine. A particularly loud noise in the woods that Draco was sure could be any human eating or bloodsucking animal that Romania was famous for made both of them jump closer to each other and he spotted the fright in her eyes too.

It was not courageous, then again Draco rarely felt brave, but he grabbed her hand loosely before he realized that his hand must be freezing. She held on tight instead, not carrying much or accepting that it was cold, whatever it was he could not tell. That she didn't even make a remark of this made him appreciate her company even more but he was still telling himself that she was still as annoying as ever.

When they were in the middle, between crossways that all looked the same Hermione brought out her wand. "Lumos Maxima," she said and a small light was shining from the end of her slim wand.

Draco merely looked at the source of light, "Brilliant."

He could see how Hermione smiled in the light of her wand. "Thanks, it's just a stronger Lumos. Now you do one."

"Right," Draco said, although he hadn't used any magic since The Hungarian Inn. He fished out his wand, mumbling, "lumos maxima," while praying that there would come out something at the end of his wand. It was typical male; he thought, but the bigger, the better.

At the end of his wand was a weak, yellowish and flickering light that could not even match Hermione's bright, white and powerful light. He knew it was below mediocre but she smiled and said, "Good. Now let's go," and this time she was the one reaching out for his hand.

They walked in silence, her light guiding them more than his weakening light. He didn't know if it was the ordeal of walking or if it was tiredness or even the use of magic but he slowly felt like a battery unchanging and for every step he took he felt the urge to fall down. It was only her presence, and the need to maintain whatever he played at, that kept him walking.

The narrow path that they walked on ended and at the end he saw flames. He saw hell.

"Jean," Hermione gasped towards the monster that was spitting out fire while he was freezing to death.

The dragon, which he now loved in a complicated way, howled something that he should not understand. But he did and it was the language of defeat. The wimping and the pain that she tried to tell her keepers about, he felt, the heat she felt, he felt in coldness. He knew how it felt to feel like everything was ripping, tearing and shifting without the purple potion. Watching her whim, a sound that Draco knew was nothing more than a wish of death, made him lose himself. He felt as he was losing the grip of the days and of the beat of his heart at times, he felt weak and worn out. It was then it really hit him, the reality and the magnitude of it all had finally hit him like a stunning spell.

For a split second his knees bent.

Hermione grabbed him. "Why are you so cold and pale?" Hermione asked and cast her wand light directly under his face.

Draco stared at her blankly, his eyes trying to find hers throughout the light between them. "Death," he murmured vaguely. "Her death scares me."

Hermione flung herself on him while her tears were wetting down his dry cheeks. "I know you can't leave, Draco, you love her so much," she murmured. "Stay here and I promise I will do everything to get her to England before. . ." She silenced now, only sobs and her nails digging into his back was all he could feel.

Draco felt something inside of him tug. If he was dying tonight, he didn't want it to be in a forest with a dragon that he had already placed a death sentence on, illness or not. He somehow didn't care how he went any longer; he didn't care much about the dramatic exit of Draco Malfoy now that it hit him that once you exited you stayed like that. He just got this feeling that holding someone's hand was the way to go and if she left, Hermione, he would be left holding Charlie's robust, unsmooth hand when he passed towards his ancestors.

Dying next to a Weasley is seven times and a Knut worse than dying next to a muggleborn.

"This is why we need to get her to England," Draco said instead, composed. "We're going tonight. I'm going back with you to get it done," he said and he was now holding Hermione harder.

He faced Jean that looked at him with glistering eyes and he knew by looking at her that he was crying unwillingly. The emotions that were bottled up since the day at St: Mungos when the Private Doctor had told him about his illness, Dragon Heart Failure, all poured out. When Hermione felt him shiver she withdrew herself slowly from holding him to say a few comforting words but Draco didn't let her go. For once he never wanted to let anything of good go, he just held her hard, letting himself crumple in her arms but prayed that this was not taken as weakness. They stood like that, slowly stopping to cry and now just holding each other for warmth, comfort and something else that Draco didn't know he felt.

With a low voice from behind them Charlie made them both turn to face him. He said something that reminded Draco about this morning,"I would not leave this camp with Apparation if I was you Draco; remember what I told you about. . . Jean's illness, this morning?"

Hermione murmured something about goodbyes to the girls as Charlie requested to have a private word with Draco. It dawned to Draco that Charlie was talking about him not doing any heavy magic. His magic was already weak and that had been the everyday spells. Apparating through different lands to get to London from Romania he knew by experience was not pleasant. Then again, this was his last day and Hermione looked devastated at the scene from the group of keepers she stood with, ready to leave it and Draco was almost ready to leave anywhere with her.

"I need to get back to England," Draco told Charlie and sighed, now looking at Hermione who was mumbling healing spells under her breath along with the other keepers to shoot at Jean from a far.

Charlie then whispered something quiet, "It'll kill you."

Looking at Hermione who were now fingering her wand restlessly, because Jean was falling to the ground and into a heavy sleep, Draco smirked. "If we don't get home tonight, so will she."

"Fine, it was a good run, kid," Charlie said and now drew him in into a crushing hug that was enough to kill him on the spot. "Don't worry about Jean, just hurry. I hope I'll see you again, Draco. Supremus! Lex!"

"Yeah," Draco said, once released, not understanding the final words of Charlie annoying him. "Whatever you said back at you."

He went over to where Hermione was saying goodbye to all the dragon tamers that stood on the safe clearing a spot away. They were all mumbling their goodnights to each other with a sad filled voice, some of them saying , "Not more than two weeks, she have, a struggler thought," while other murmured, "if she make it through tonight I'd be surprised." The dark-haired woman spoke loudest, "you have no faith," she said angrily, "I'll give her until the dragons in the sky come to summon her."

"We better be going," Draco interrupted because in some weird way it felt like they were talking about him.

They all shifted towards him, some of them squinting towards him like he was see-through while some of them looked sadly at his way. Hermione was the only one that spoke, "Yeah. We have a long trip tonight."

They waved goodbye to go back to the camp where their bags were packed and waiting. They walked towards the camp in silence once again, besides the occasional sobs from Hermione and the sound of chattered teeth from Draco. Once they were ready to travel back to London Hermione prepared her wand and expected Draco to do so. Instead, Draco prepared to ask for help.

"Hermione?" Draco asked and thanked for the darkness in the forest.

"Draco?" Hermione replied.

With her bag firmly in her left hand and her wand in the right she looked like the most powerful thing in this forest. He could feel her energy radiate, although he was sure that those things couldn't be felt, and he was sure that she had enough magic for a whole country to Apparate safely. He asked her the only question that could help him right now, "I'm not feeling. . .like a bottle of Dittany. . .can we Apparate together?"

Hermione hesitated, and then smiled. "Well then," she said and let his hand take hers. "Hold on tight."

Once they were linked he closed his eyes and Apparated along with Hermione. He felt her add so much to him, so much that he felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. Once he dared to open his eyes, a huge mistake, he saw the outlines of something that looked like a German city and felt even worse than before. He shut his eyes, firmly this time, deciding that he would not open them. His hand was slowly slipping away from hers and she, knowing that it could end up in him being lost in the time and space continuum or even worse, Spain, she grabbed him for dear life with her slippery fingers. He tried his best to effort to not let go but he felt done.

Drained.

If he only could let go and accept he would not need this struggle, this fight or this battle. If he could only face his reality, he thought, and opened his eyes but once again he got sick by the thin outlining of an endless mix of blues. Blue, the color blue was safe, if he just let her go or if she just slipped and let him freefall into the blue, endless, blue. . . But she refused, now grabbing the whole of him and he felt slippery with cold sweat and blood. He realized that the pain blazing through his left arm felt like back in those dark days and the blood that got sticky and dry during the speed disguised him, making him look dead, but she didn't seem to mind the dark, twisted blood in his veins, pouring out of him onto her. She grabbed every piece of him that she could get her hands on and for every inch she touched he felt more pain, more heaven like and more endless blue.

He didn't know much about anything right now, in the darkness of his shut eyes, only that he was the empty muggle battery. When things started to stop spinning and starting to shape she was the only thing firm he could see. In the blur, when he only saw her as snapshots he regretted everything he'd ever done her, and would do. She seemed to call his name and shake at him with a desperation he didn't deserve. Hearing her yell while the sound of her disappeared was a horrible feeling and all he really needed was a second extra before whatever happened once it went dark to tell her the truth about the evil, death tricking beast he was. He opened his mouth to speak to her but the word he looked for didn't form, not even air found its way out through the thickness of his throat.

When Draco couldn't breathe any longer his eyes rolled back in exhaustion and his legs bent. Endlessly he fell towards something soft and the last thing he saw before darkness was a snapshot of his bleeding arm, a foul shade of a red brown color and a small inked in word that said; sorry.

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A/N: …review.