Title: Like a Dream
Rating: T
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Summary: Hermione & Blaise deal with an unexpected tragedy.
Hermione's fingers clutched the cloth in her hand tightly, her knuckles white as she stared intently at Blaise. "No," she said hoarsely, "that can't be right." The tears were coming, she knew. The fierce burn behind her eyes, the trembling of her jaw, and she was trying so hard not to. "You don't mean that."
But his soft silence, the understanding, the... pity in his eyes, told her it was true. He was gone. Hermione pulled his robe closer to her chest, her heart racing as her legs felt suddenly watery. "I'm so sorry, Hermione," Blaise's deep voice was of little comfort. His apology wouldn't bring him back, would it? She swallowed hard, trying to stifle the tears. If she didn't cry, he couldn't actually be dead, right?
"How?" Her voice was barely more than a squeak. Her nose was plugging up and her heart was breaking. Hungry for knowledge, for facts, for something she could cling to other than this ache inside her chest, she searched Blaise's face. "How, Blaise? How? Why?" Hermione's will broke, her voice cracking as she let the tears squeeze out, her body shaking.
Blaise hugged her. She was so cold and thin... "Avada. He..." Blaise paused. He was tore up too. Draco had been, after all, his best friend. And he was gone. There was nothing left of him but the robe that he'd given to Hermione, now. That little scrap of cloth and all the memories Blaise could possibly stuff into his heart. He cleared his throat. "His father got him." His voice steeled a bit, "I got him right after that." He was distancing himself, just like Hermione. 'That'. You don't say, 'when he died'. 'When he was killed'. No. You say after 'it' happened. Because he didn't want to face that it'd happened either.
Hermione cried, not bothering to comment. What was the point? Blaise had avenged Draco in the best way that they could, really, so that left her nothing. Just heartache, missing his light touch and his smug smirk. "What do we do now, Blaise? He's... gone." She said it, the very words themselves trembling as she held his robe closer. It smelled faintly of him, and the woods, where the ambush had taken place.
She was going to vomit.
"I don't know," Blaise murmured, not admitting that he was clinging to Hermione as much as she was clinging to Draco's robe. They would make it through somehow, eventually. They had to. And really, all they had left of him was each other. Together, they could remember. And hopefully, with time, they would be whole again, and remember him fondly.
But for now, tears were all Blaise could muster, his own sliding down his cheeks more silently as he closed his eyes.
The sun had set on this part of his life, this facet. He could only hope, with all his being, that the sun would rise tomorrow, and give him another chance at life.
A/N: Memorial day, everyone. Remember someone who died for something they believed in. R. I. P.