"Hermione!" Ginny gasped dramatically, batting her eyelashes. "Who is the lucky man? Don't tell me you've gotten over yourself and decided to approach Ron."

Harry laughed and tightened his hold around the redhead's waist while Hermione blushed and clutched the bouquet of flowers closer to her chest. "Gin, give her a break. You know Ron would still be too thick to get the message, even if it is Valentine's Day."

"They're not for Ron," Hermione broke in quietly. "They're for Dumbledore."

And they both stopped smiling.

It stands there, proud and lonely and clean against the overcast sky and naked winter trees. The white tomb, Dumbledore's resting place, a monument to a cause that was almost futile in the end.

She stares at it, every inch of it achingly familiar to her eyes. For years she has avoided coming here, but now she feels like she can stay forever, even though it hurts so bad. It could have been yesterday that she was sobbing into Ron's shoulder while Hagrid lowered that frail bundle into the ground, along with everybody's hope.

Oh, she managed to keep fighting, keep smiling for Harry – strong, beautiful, tragic Harry. She cannot explain where this numb resolve to trudge on through a war she barely believes in anymore came from. She guesses it spawns from hatred; for Voldemort, the Death Eaters, their horrible vision of what the world should be like. Maybe it is fear. She fears them to this day. Even when Harry announced to the world that Voldemort was destroyed for good, she could not believe it. Her whole life upon entering the magical world had been centred on seeing the dark side vanquished. So when it finally happened, why didn't it go away? Why couldn't she stop hating and fearing them?

Months passed, and eventually life picked itself up again. Harry became himself a little more each day. Ginny started smiling again, and even though her family was almost gone.

None of it felt worth it, really. It was supposed to feel like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, like she could finally breathe, and yet . . . there was nothing to cheer about. Voldemort was dead, yes, so were most of his followers . . . but they were still gone.

Ron. Sirius. Dumbledore. McGonagall. Hagrid. Arthur. Bill. Charlie. George (Fred might as well be dead too, he's so broken now, so far gone). Fleur. Seamus. Dean. Angelina. Katie. Lee. Lavender. The Patil twins. The Creevey brothers. Even Firenze, Grawp, and Victor Krum had fallen. She cannot even count all the others all in her mind. She just knows their faces when she goes to sleep at night (pretending), wondering why she couldn't have saved them.

Get out of my goddamn head.

Maybe seeing the tomb will remind her why she lives in a world without these people. Many of them she did not know very well, but all of them have touched her somehow. And in death they only seem more organic, more real to her memory.

"Is that a purple Popsicle?" Ron demanded, staring at her in horror. Summer gave him more freckles, and his bare arms gleamed in the mid afternoon sunlight. She pulled the frozen bar out of her mouth and frowned, confused.

"Yes. So? What's the big deal?" she protested, ignoring the few drops of sweat on her brow. "Just because you only eat one flavour doesn't mean I can't try other ones."

He finished off his orange Popsicle with one bite and waved the stick at her. "Oh come off it, Hermione, nobody really eats the purple flavour."

Hermione laughed and shoved him away, wondering where on earth he came up with those ideas of his. Harry, sprawled out languidly on the grass with his red Popsicle, just smiled.

She cannot live like this.

She moves forward slowly, reverently, every step making her heart break just a little more. Every blade of grass feels sharp and brittle through the unworthy soles of her shoes. She stops long enough to lay the flowers on the ground. The bouquet looks so foolish and out of place, lying at the foot of the monument. There were others, dead ones, long forgotten.

Crouching suddenly, she runs her hand slowly along the smooth white surface. It's so cold, but it brings her closer to him, closer to the one man who has ever made her feel truly invincible. And she had loved him, in a way. He was the grandfather she never knew. He was the only one who did not laugh at her SPEW efforts – she smiles vaguely at the memory. But God, she was so stupid then. Such a stupid, naïve little girl, didn't know a thing.

Footsteps behind her make her go still. She listens, motionless, as her sudden companion comes closer. Through the silence of the hills, the absence of wind, she can hear boots squelching in the wet earth, a cloak sweeping over the grass.

"I was just leaving," she lies, awkwardly standing up and shoving her hands into her coat pockets. She hadn't expected anyone else to show up on this day.

"You needn't hurry," the visitor says quietly. "I imagine he would prefer your company over mine."

And her blood freezes.

She turns around and stares at him, not wanting to believe her ears.

It can't be.

So little about him has changed. His hair, though slightly longer, is still that unparalleled shade of silver blonde that caught the light even on the most overcast of days like today. His eyes match the swirling clouds overhead, a cold grey that somehow seems to burn. The black robes draped around his slender build accent the paleness of his skin, and he almost glows in this dreary grey place. He was taller than her, but he would still just barely match Harry's height.

He stands close, closer than she had anticipated. In four steps, she could touch him. He looks worn out, she realizes dimly. His hair his slightly dirty, and his robes look shabby and worn. She never would have believed him capable of looking anything less than perfect.

She backs up once and finds herself pressed against the monument, completely forgetting about her wand tucked in the back pocket. Protect me, God help me.

"I don't plan on hurting you," he informs her, slowly appraising the woman before him. "And I came here alone. There's no pack of Death Eaters waiting for you beyond the trees." His eyes hold something unreadable as he inspects her.

She knows that she has changed a lot from the curvy, pink and brown child she used to be. Her hair is still as thick and wild as it was when she was too young and preoccupied to really care. Her skin is pale, but not angelically like his, just drab and sickly from years of insomnia and days spent inside. She has so little appetite left. Food sickens her. Now her ribs and hip bones jut out harshly under her simple, unflattering clothes, so much that she cannot stand the sight of herself naked in the bathroom mirror.

"You . . . you have so much nerve, coming to this place . . . you of all people . . ." she whispers, shaking.

He smiles suddenly, catching her off guard. It's the sort of smile that is neither pleasant nor malevolent.

"You're still you, I see," he says with a hollow chuckle. "Good. Sometimes you don't realize how much you miss something until it's gone, and when you find it again . . ."

"What do you want?" she demands, wanting to scream but unable to. "I should – I should kill you for what you've done to us. To me. You have no right to be here."

Suddenly he looks like a stranger to her, a lost stranger who has forgotten why he is even here. The vacant smile fades.

"I know," he replies, sounding so tired. She did not expect him to relent like that. She knows she should summon the Ministry to come get him, arrest him for being the Death Eater he is and always has been, but seeing him like this makes her hesitate.

"Do what you came to do and leave," she orders, though in a somewhat more civil tone. "I'll give you an hour's head start before I call on the Aurors."

A shadow clouds his eyes, resembling the elements swirling overhead. There is a storm coming.

"I don't deserve it," he remarks, trying to sound casual and careless, like his old self.

"No, you don't," she agrees scathingly, crossing her arms. She is cold.

"I don't understand you," he sighs, but it almost sounds affectionate. A longing for the good old days when they were just class enemies, not warriors on a battlefield trying out live each other. "Why -"

"Because I am just so sick of that damn war and it won't go away," she snaps, and feels tears rise up behind her eyes. "I was so close to being over it. Coming here was supposed to be the last step to finally moving on and starting a normal life, but – but you just had to come here too. You had to ruin the one chance I had at picking up the pieces . . ."

It starts raining, sudden and heavy, but there is no wind to drive it. The drops fall vertical and listless, soaking them both in a matter of seconds. Neither reacts.

He is watching her fall apart, and his fingers twitch at his side as if he wants to reach out and put her back together. She has never seen his face look so . . . so . . .

"Answer me one question," she asks, her lips trembling. "Is this really what you wanted? Is this the life you would have chosen, had you known how things were going to turn out?"

He answers readily, but calmly. "No. Not even if we had won. I didn't want any of it."

"Then . . . why?"

"Granger, I didn't ask to be a part of this any more than you asked to be a Gryffindor. It . . . these things just happen. Call it fate, call it tragedy, call it whatever you want. It was out of my hands."

"These things to not just happen!" she shouts, catching them both off guard. He even flinches. "Murder and rape and cruelty do not just happen, Malfoy! You had a choice, there was always a choice! You could have . . . we would have protected you if you came to our side. We could have saved you – "

"Saved me? Saved me?" he breaks in, looking amazed at her. "Merlin, you . . . you don't get it, do you?"

He starts laughing suddenly, rendering her speechless.

"There . . . there is nothing to save," he breathes, his shoulders still shaking. "There is nothing left in me worth saving, Granger."

She cannot tell if those are tears or rainwater running down his face.

He sinks down onto his knees in the wet grass, leaning back on his heels. "You could kill me right now . . . right here . . . and it wouldn't make a damn difference in the world to me."

A sound threatens to come up from of her throat and out her mouth.

"I-I . . . I should kill you. The Ministry would not fault me for doing it. I could cut you open and leave you out here to bleed to death and they would not even touch me," she whispers, her veins igniting.

He reaches up and pulls his shirt open over his chest, revealing a clean white target. His face is completely devoid of fear – so different from the whinging coward she once knew.

Had she ever known him?

"So do it." No challenge, no taunts . . . Merlin, he wants to die. He is staring her right in the face, begging her to take his life.

"No," she breathes, shaking her head and closing her eyes. She reaches back to touch the slick wet stone behind her, drawing strength from it. "This . . . this isn't what Dumbledore would want. I can't do it."

His posture sags ever so slightly. He looks at her with a mixture of awe and relief.

She turns away to press her face against the tomb. " 'It's the age of daring. It's the only time we have,' " she whispers.

" 'We must live in the present. We are young and alive,' " he finishes, a small smile on his lips. "He said those very same words to me."

She closes her eyes. "Why are you here, Draco? What brought you back?"

"I don't know. I suppose . . ." he stops and seems to search for the right expression. "I suppose I just came to tell him that I'm sorry."

She stiffens, a chord inside her having been struck. Her heart beats faster. "And . . . are you?"

He is quiet for so long that she wonders if he even heard her, she spoke so softly. But he is looking right at her, struggling with words.

"More than I've ever been in my life," he replies slowly. Every syllable causes pain to flash across his face.

She stands up straight and closes the distance between them. They are standing so close that they can feel each other's breath warming their faces under the pouring rain.

"You're wrong," she murmurs.

"About what?" he asks, hypnotized by her.

"There is, and always has been, something in you worth saving."

Impulsively she rises up and kisses him lightly on the mouth, a delicate brushing of the lips that could have been sisterly, could have been motherly, only it wasn't and they both knew it.

She drops down only so that he can kiss a trail across her forehead. He his holding her, and for a moment she can fool herself into believing that things could have been this way all along.

Should have been.

For a moment they stand suspended from the rest of the world, until the moment ends and she turns away to look back at the tombstone and pay her last respects. She kneels down in the wet grass and prays wordlessly to the last shred of God she can hold onto that somewhere out there, she can find peace for herself and for him.

By the time she stands up, he is gone.

000

Wow. I bet you can tell this was rushed.

I'M SO SORRY THIS IS LATE! I tried like a demon to make the deadline but my computer had some severe maintenance issues and I have been struggling with piles of homework lately. Please forgive me!

You are writing for:
Philyra912

Side pairing: Harry/Ginny
Rating: T and up if you can swing that. Basically, knock yourself out. It's up to you.
Period: Post-HBP
Includes:
1) A rainstorm (preferably with Draco and Hermione caught in it)
2) Flowers that have nothing to do with Valentine's Day
3) A discussion revolving around why there are purple popsicles when everyone knows no one eats that colour
4) The quote (or at least PART of the quote) "It's the age of daring. It's the only time we have. We must live in the present. We are young and alive." (From the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
Tone: Romantic Angst
Ending: Hmm . . . I'm going to say "happy," but it doesn't have to be bunnies and flowers. Just vaguely hopeful is enough for me.