The first time Hermione saw him again, she thought she was imagining things.
She had been walking through the library late at night, her fingers trailing along the spines of old books, the silence thick and heavy around her. Hogwarts had always felt like a second home, but after the war, it had become something else.
A monument. A graveyard. A place where memories clung to the air like dust.
She wasn’t sure why she looked up.
Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was fate.
Or maybe—maybe it was him.
Draco Malfoy stood at the far end of the aisle, just past the Restricted Section, looking at her the way a person looks at something they never expected to see again.
She stopped breathing.
He looked the same. Pale, sharp-featured, dressed in dark robes. His silver eyes weren’t cold anymore, but something else—something distant, something hollow.
She opened her mouth. “Malfoy—”
And then he turned.
And walked straight through the bookshelf.
Hermione froze.
Her breath caught in her throat, her heart stuttering against her ribs.
Because that wasn’t possible.
Because people didn’t just walk through solid wood.
Because—
Because Draco Malfoy was dead.
She hadn’t planned to ask.
She had told herself it wasn’t real, that it had been a trick of the light, that stress and exhaustion were making her see things that weren’t there.
But the memory clung to her, whispered in the quiet spaces of her mind, refused to fade.
So one evening, after the last of her students had left her classroom , she went to McGonagall.
The Headmistress listened carefully, her expression unreadable, her fingers folded neatly atop her desk.
When Hermione finished, there was a long silence.
Then, finally—
“We have all lost people, Miss Granger,” McGonagall said, her voice softer than Hermione had expected. “Some losses refuse to be forgotten.”
“That’s not an answer,” Hermione said, trying to keep her voice steady.
McGonagall sighed.
“There are ghosts at Hogwarts,” she said simply. “Some we see. Some we don’t.”
Hermione swallowed. “And Malfoy?”
McGonagall’s lips pressed together, and for the first time, the Headmistress looked tired.
“He has been here since the war ended.”
Hermione felt something cold settle inside her.
“Why?”
“I do not know.”
McGonagall’s gaze was steady, but there was something almost hesitant in it, something unreadable.
“Perhaps you should ask him.”
He doesn’t know why she keeps looking for him.
Why she speaks to him, watches him, sees him.
He doesn’t know why she cares.
But she does.
And it terrifies him.
Because Hermione Granger has always been relentless. Unyielding. She sees problems and finds solutions, picks apart puzzles until they make sense.
But he is not a puzzle she can solve.
He is a mistake.
A shadow stitched into the walls of Hogwarts, a whisper of a life unfinished, trapped between what was and what could have been.
He never meant to stay.
But he did.
And now he lingers, caught in the spaces between what matters and what’s already gone.
It became a routine, in a way.
She found him in the library, in the Great Hall, by the Black Lake. Always watching, never speaking.
And so, eventually, she spoke for both of them.
One evening, she found him in the Astronomy Tower, standing at the edge, looking at the sky as if searching for something he would never find.
She sat on the cold stone floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and said, “I used to love coming up here when I was a student.”
He didn’t move.
Didn’t acknowledge her presence.
But she knew he was listening.
She exhaled. “It’s quieter now. After everything. But I suppose you already know that.”
He still said nothing.
So she talked.
Not about the war, or about him, but about the little things. About the library’s new collection of enchanted texts. About the seventh-years stressing over their N.E.W.T.s. About the owl that had taken up residence in the Charms corridor and refused to leave.
She didn’t know why she did it.
Maybe because someone needed to.
Maybe because she couldn’t stand the silence.
Or maybe—maybe because she wasn’t ready to admit how much it hurt to see him like this.
To see him, and yet not see him at all.
She found him again in the library.
This time, he was standing at a table, his fingers resting on the pages of an open book.
She didn’t speak right away.
Just watched.
And then she saw it—
Sees the way his fingers don’t leave an imprint on the parchment, the way the pages don’t shift beneath his touch, the way the book remains perfectly still.
Like he isn’t even there.
Like he isn’t real.
Her throat tightens.
“You can’t turn the pages.”
His expression doesn’t change.
He doesn’t look at her.
Doesn’t move.
And for a moment, she wonders if he’ll just disappear again.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he exhales slowly, his fingers curling slightly against the paper.
“No,” he murmurs.
A pause.
Then—
“I can’t.”
Hermione’s chest aches.
And she doesn’t know why.
She found him one last time by the Black Lake, his reflection absent from the water, his presence barely a whisper in the cold night air.
And she said, “It’s time.”
Draco turned to her, his expression unreadable.
“For what?”
She swallowed. “To let go.”
A slow, hollow laugh. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s not.”
His lips twitched. “Figures.”
She hesitated, then stepped closer, the space between them shrinking.
“I don’t want you to disappear,” she whispered.
A flicker of something in his gaze.
“You never used to care about me, Granger.”
“I do now,” she admitted.
And that was the problem, wasn’t it?
That she had spent so long hating him, resenting him, dismissing him—only to find that now, when it was too late, she cared.
Cared that he was trapped in a place he didn’t belong.
Cared that he had never been given a second chance.
Cared that, in the end, no one had been there to save him.
He looked at her then, really looked at her, and for the first time, she saw it.
The way he was fading.
The way the stars shone through his skin, the way the wind moved through him instead of around him.
The way he was already slipping away, piece by piece, and she hadn’t even noticed.
And he knew.
She could see it in his eyes.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” he asked softly.
Her throat ached. “Yes.”
A pause.
Then, barely above a whisper—
“You’ll remember me?”
Hermione’s breath hitched.
“Always.”
And for the first time since she had seen him again—
Draco Malfoy smiled.
Soft.
And real.
And then he was gone.
Just like that.
The lake was still.
The night was silent.
And Hermione Granger was alone.
But sometimes—just sometimes—she thought she could still hear his voice.
Like a whisper in the wind.
Like the ghost of a dream she never got to have.