His Last Letter

It was nighttime. Midnight, to be exact. Hermione clasped her husband's hand tightly. Ron, feeling the squeeze, winced slightly, before returning it. The five Aurors, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville stood side by side before the ebony gates of the manor.

Tonight, they would enter Malfoy Manor to kill every remaining Death Eater, and if their information was right, there was only one Death Eater un-captured: Draco Malfoy.

A flash of blue light shone before them, as Draco cried out beyond the gates, "Protego!"

It was all over.

Hermione let out an uneasy pant for the night had been clearly an exhausting one. Ron sat down beside her, a relieved expression on his face. Draco was a supreme duelist, five to one and he gave in only after an hour of intense battling.

"Let's go home now, Hermione." A gentle voice whispered beside her. Ginny.

"You four leave. I want to do... something." Hermione bowed her head. She knew perfectly well that really, she wasn't planning to do anything. Still, she want not about to tell her fellow colleagues that any time soon.

"Hermione! But we-" Ron protested lividly, before Ginny cut his brother off.

"Ron! Let's go."

With a reluctant nod, Ron got to his feet uncertainly, before following the other Aurors out leaving Hermione finally alone. The handsome manor had been nearly reduced to a pile of white rubble, with shards of glass scattered on the floor. Malfoy had put up a good fight.

Hesitantly, Hermione strode to the sprawled body of Malfoy, before lowering herself onto the small patch of undamaged floor beside the corpse. Malfoy lay motionless beside her, his arms in an awkward position, his legs twisted in an inhuman way. His lips were still partially open, as if about to emit a scream.

With a jolt, she remembered what his last words were: "Hermione, I-". The sound was cut off by the final fatal blow from Ron. As she continued to stare at Malfoy's body, tears started to slide down her cheeks unknowingly.

Those lips were the ones who called her 'Mudblood' every time they met in the school hallways. They were the same lips that had insulted her and jeered her, in every way possible. But they were still memorable- hurtful but memorable. Those pale white cheeks were the same ones she had slapped in her third year. That was the very first time she hurt anyone in any way.

Malfoy had made her life hell in Hogwarts, insulting her, hexing her constantly and always abusing her emotionally. Her only comfort then was Harry and Ron- Harry a friend and Ron a lover. Malfoy was the school bully, but he was still a student, just like her. They had walked the same corridors, slept under the same roof. What she'd gone through, so did he. After all, they were classmates, schoolmates.

And he was part of her life.

She stared mournfully at the familiar corpse lying before her, when a flapping sound disrupted her. Glancing up in surprise, she saw a beautiful eagle owl with a large plumage that she almost immediately recognized as the Malfoys' owl. It was hovering on her right with a letter.

"Accio!" The yellow letter zoomed to her hand, bound with a scarlet ribbon with the word 'Malfoy' engraved on it. Impatiently, she tore open the letter- it was the first time she received a letter from Malfoy. Why would she even receive it, especially now?

With her heart beating fast, she started reading.

Dear Hermione,

If you are reading this, I'm probably gone from your world already, in heaven. Or in hell. So please, Hermione, for once, listen.

This will be the last letter I will ever write, Hermione. And I'm writing it to you.

Hermione. From first to sixth year, I've always had a crush on you. I dismissed it as a childhood obsessiveness, or a simple infatuation. But I never got around telling you that I liked you Hermione, so I'm telling you now.

It wasn't just any shallow love that any two people could achieve. It was a need, Hermione, much more than just Love.

But I want to confess, express, and to finally tell you that I wished I had a better life. Contrary to popular belief, Hermione, my life was hell. My father was a womanizer, a drinker, a cheater. Oh, and a gambler. How many times he had cheated on my mother, I do not know. I don't bother counting.

My mother was a timid person. My aunt abused her. My father beat her. With all her frustration, she vented it on me. You don't want to know what she did to hurt me.

Sometimes life to me was like an endless torture. Even the Cruciatus curse was better than it. Crucio hurts you physically, yes, but as compared to mental pain, it's nothing. And I wish you'll never need to feel it. Sometimes I didn't want to get up in the morning, because it was the start of a new round of torture. I would hurt others, because I was hurt.

I was a bad person, Hermione, and I hate myself for it.

When I was younger, my father controlled me. At Hogwarts, the Dark Lord controlled me. In other words, Hermione, I never really lived a life. I was just a small pawn, a ready sacrifice, a small worthless jigsaw piece designed just to fill in a larger picture.

And then you came.

You were a Muggle-born, a buck-toothed girl, a bookworm. No matter how mean the Slytherins were to you, you kept your head held high like a queen. You never faltered; you never fell down to the floor. You were the first person I'd ever seen to stand upright against the storm, Hermione. That is why I looked up to you, why you were the one that kept me going when life was meaningless.

You made everything bad about life so much better. You made getting up in the morning possible. You gave me purpose. You gave me every reason to stay alive – you made my life worth living.

I'm sorry that I'd hurt you when we were young. I'm sorry for everything I tried to do to ruin your Hogwarts life. I'm sorry that I'd harmed you, in any way, whether was it towards you, or to any of your friends.

I know you love Ronald, Hermione, and there's nothing I can do to change that, for in a love triangle, someone must be hurt. I just hope that you know I'll always be there, watching over you, waiting for you.

Some things in the world are timeless. Love is one of them.

And I'll be there when we meet each other again.

When the skies are blue again, I'll be there. I'll be with you forever.

I love you.

Draco Lucius Malfoy

The letter ended there. Hermione finally realized what Draco's last words really were: "Hermione, I love you."

The next morning, Ron and Harry were the ones who went back to the destroyed manor to search for Hermione, for she did not return home. They were greeted with a good hard search, until they found her lying silently amongst the rubble in the manor, with the ceiling caved in.

Her fingers were intertwined with Draco's.

Unmoving, the two lay side by side, staring at the open sky, their eyes glassy, reflecting the skies above.

The sky was blue.