Chapter 1
He picks his way through the wreckage, the cold, stiff earth crunching beneath his boots. There's voices in the distance--cries of the dying, allies calling to one another,, and two voices he would recognize anywhere. He stills, lifting his gaze to the horizon, letting it sweep over the ruin surrounding him.
"Draco? Draco!" His mother's voice rings out in the stillness, faint in the distance. His heart skips a beat, and he can barely conceal his relieved exhale. The tension in his shoulders melts away with the realization that they are still alive, safe. He turns and starts walking in the direction he's heard her voice, but just as he lifts his foot, a soft moan to his left catches his attention. He changes his direction and takes a few tentative steps toward the noise, wand at the ready. As he draws near, he can just make out the rumpled heap of a body lying among the debris. He quickens his steps to get a closer look and tightens his grip on the slender wood in his hand until the whites of his knuckles are visible.
He recognizes her even before he's reached her side. Her wavy brown tresses are stained with blood--not her own, he hopes distantly--dirt and ashes, sticking to her pallid face. Her half-lidded eyes now shut tight as her face twists with unveiled anguish. He drops to his knees beside her, quickly pocketing his wand to reach out for her. He stills, hand frozen in mid-air, and withdraws it as she squeezes her eyes shut against the agony in her arm.
"Malfoy?" He flinches, not so much at her address as at the trembling pain in her voice. She coughs, and her body tenses, lines of pain taught in her features. She blinks several times; he catches the gleam of unshed tears. She draws in a shaking breath. He swallows thickly, his adam's apple bobbing, and follows an impulse.
"Granger." He can feel the flicker of surprise that courses through her as he draws her into his arms. Another shudder racks her frame, and she writhes this time, biting her lip against the pain blazing in her arm. His brows knit together at this, and he looks down, searching her form for any other visible injury. His gaze settles on the slur his aunt has carved into her arm. The terrible words are crusted with dried blood, the sharp lines deep in the sensitive skin. Her shirtsleeve is only pushed up to the elbow, enough to bare the mark, but no further.
"Where are they?" she breathes, her voice barely above a whisper. He opens his mouth to ask her to clarify, but another look into her eyes, at the regret, the thinly-veiled fear, and the love therein, is all the answer he needs.
"I don't know," he answers, shaking his head. Regrets the truth even as it leaves his mouth solely for the sake of the sorrow that flashes in her eyes. "Not here." He intends the last words to comfort her, adding silently, out of the blast range, hopefully.
She bites her bottom lip to keep from crying out, but nonetheless a hiss of pain escapes her. He draws her closer, carefully nestling her head in the crook of his arm. She shifts, then, her breathing stilted, labored, and blinks a few times, slowly. She draws in a slow, trembling breath and with an effort he does not fail to notice, lifts her gaze to his. Something grips his heart when he can see the spark so familiar in her eyes--fading even now--and its hold is painful, constricting. He cherishes that spark now, ruefully so given that he's watching it disappear before his own eyes. Foolishly so, he thinks, afterwards, given that he had only ever been on the stinging receiving end of the looks she'd given him with that spark in her eyes. Not undeserved, he admits to himself, well aware of his own less than pleasant interactions with her in their years at Hogwarts.
Remembers all too well the blow she'd landed in their third year, and despite himself, can do nothing to stop the slight quirk of his lips at the memory. He doesn't think he will ever forgot the courage of the witch in his arms--acknowledges the aptness that she had been sorted into Gryffindor. Undaunted bravery. An indomitable will. The light in her fiercer than the sun itself. He remembers, now, when she'd descended the steps the night of the Yule Ball. The way she'd held her head high, allowing a soft smile to grace her lips. Draco had almost entirely forgotten about the pouting Slytherin girl hanging on his arm until she'd torn her arm from his with a disgruntled huff. He'd turned to look at her, to snap a response, and when he'd glanced back at the stairs, Hermione was gone. He hadn't lingered to watch her waltz around the room in the Durmstrang champion's arms.
"Protect them," she murmurs, the words leaving her mouth on the weary sigh falling from her lips. "Please." He regards her silently, his gaze searching hers as if there, he could find the answer to the question on his heart--one he dares not vocalize, not to her, not now. An emotion he adamantly refuses to name twines long, constricting tendrils around his heart, squeezing the bruised muscle painfully, and he recoils, in confusion. It has no place there, he decides. Curses himself for the faltering stutter of his pulse, the physical manifestation of a fleeting hope he'd carried in his heart since their 4th year. Watches that hope wither and die, to blow away like the ashes now carried off by the wind.
Can't believe that the fire he'd always seen burning so brightly in the depths of her eyes--windows to her soul--sputters now, flickering and fading like dying embers. She who had stood, straight-backed, unflinching beside the Boy Who Lived. He'd only ever seen her like this in his ancestral home, limp and broken on the floor in the wake of his aunt's ruthless torture. He swallows again, the lump in his throat aching as the scene replays itself in his mind. He leans back some to gaze at her; her breathing is still shallow, but softer now, slower.
"Please," she whispers again. She opens her eyes slowly, just enough to meet his. She suffers, he knows this, but he sees no sign of it on her face now. Finds, instead, the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. His aching heart skips a beat as the realization hits him he will never see such a smile again. The recognition of it twists into him like a dagger; he remembers such a smile, the ones she alone could offer him. The only one who ever did.
4th Year
He stormed off, his pride trodden underfoot in the wake of Professor Moody's "demonstration". He'd dismissed Crabbe and Goyle, too irritated to deal with their low wit. He shoved his books under his arm and stalked down the corridor, his robes flapping behind him. He passed several other students on their way to classes, bristling when he caught hushed murmurs of the ferret they'd seen in the last break, stifled laughter. Almost missed the conspicuous cough off to his left just as he turned a corner.
He paused, whipping around, eyes narrowed to slits, a scathing remark already on the tip of his tongue when he locked eyes with the cause of the noise.
Hermione Granger.
"What do you find so bloody funny?" he hissed. "Don't you have. . ." He sputtered, fumbling for words that escape him. She nonetheless kept looking at him the way she did, her dark eyes gleaming with mirth, her lips curved into a delighted smile. She tilted her head to the side and a soft peal of laughter falls from her lips. He realized, only later, that her laughter wasn't derisive, mocking, like everyone else. . .but more like the laughter of an inside joke. "What's that? On your face?" He meant for it to come out harsher than it did. Wondered if she is oblivious to the tension in his body language or deliberately ignores it.
"What?" she asked him with all innocence. She set the book she'd been reading down beside her and twining one arm around the pillar beside her, leaned over to get a better look at him. He said nothing, a muscle in his jaw jumping, and stared her down. After a few moments, she lifted an index finger to point at the smile on her face. "This? It's called a smile, Draco. You should try it some time."
"As if you have a reason to 'smile'," he sneered, shouldering once more the bag that in his hasty escape had slipped from his hold. Missed the fact that she has called him by his first name. "You weren't the one who got transfigured in front of the whole school."
"You don't always need a reason to," she admonished. "I don't have one, actually, but I wanted to. Good day, Draco." She hopped off of her seat and walked away.
It is when the tension leaves her, and she relaxes in his hold that fear colder than anything he has ever known sinks its claws into his heart. Her head lolls in the crook of his arm, and when her eyes flutter shut, something shatters within him.
"Granger? Granger!" Draco shifts his hold on her, tucking her against his chest. He extends one trembling hand to caress her cheek, the next breath he takes stilted when he's met with the already icy pallor of her skin. He blinks a few times, and the almost imperceptible movement dislodges a tear. He rocks her back and forth, biting his lip to hold back a scream.
He has lost her.
He lifts his hand to the hair that's fallen across her face and brushes it back with a tenderness, he realizes, she has never (and will never) know from him. The thought sends another wave of grief through him, for it reminds him of a fact proved painfully true, now that she is gone.
She was the only one who had ever extended a semblance of kindness to him. Not Crabbe, nor Goyle. Not Zabini, Parkinson or any of his fellow Slytherins. Potter and the Weasel had only ever bristled with barely contained hatred; he isn't surprised at this. Realizes he hadn't helped the matter with the less than friendly encounters both parties had shared. But she was different. His jaw clenches against the anguish rending him to pieces; his gaze shutters beneath tightly knit brows and another tear slides down his cheek. He realizes, now, that where he had greeted her with slurs, insults and condescencion, she had never responded in kind. Never did she once turn the same behaviour on him.
Memories, unbidden, rise to the forefront of his mind.
Sixth Year, Potions
He straddled the stool he sat on and leaned his elbows on the table before him as a frustrated sigh escaped his lips. The book he had thrown into a disgraceful heap on the floor now entered his vision again, sliding onto the table beside the caldron. He looked up to find Hermione beside him, pushing the book with the tip of her wand.
"So easily discouraged? What kind of pureblood wizard does that make you?" There was a faint smile on her lips, a playful lightness in her tone; enough that he knew she did not intend to injure with her words. But he did not miss the detail she's touched on.
"Bloody waste of time," he muttered with a firm shake of his head. "If I can't figure it out, neither--" he paused, and when his gaze met hers, it held no fury, no hatred, just tired irritation. "Neither could you, mudblood." He averted his gaze and glowered instead at the book with rumpled pages. The insult flew out faster than he meant it to, nonetheless delivered half-heartedly. A silence settled between them, broken only by the bubbling liquid in his caldron and the flicker of the flames beneath it.
"You put one too many drops of mercury," she answered quietly. There was a soft rustle of pages flipping, followed by the definitive thump of a book falling onto the table. He looked up, eyes riveted on the text she pointed to with a delicate index finger. "Slughorn put us together on this, Malfoy. If one of us fails, we both do." She said nothing more after that. He only huffed in response and snatched the book up, peering at the instructions he'd pored over time and time again. "You've got to start over." Only when the clatter of moving objects, a whispered command and the wet plunk of something landing in the cauldron met his ears--only then did he realize she had started the process over.
His mistake. His error. In all justice, an act that he should have taken the initiative to carry out. She did it wordlessly.
He shakes his head, blinking furiously at the tears blurring his vision and leans down to press his forehead to hers, already growing cold. Another memory presents itself.
"Malfoy," she called out, just loud enough for him to hear, her tone very carefully even. He froze, turned in his heel and shot her a sneer that fell so far short of his usual standard that it was almost depressing.
"What, Granger?" He snapped, again, lacking heavily in bite and coming off far more tired than she thought he intended.
"Look," she started, biting her lip quickly before ploughing onwards with bravado, "I don't know what's going on in your life right now, and please don't tell me, but you really look like you could use a hug right now, so that's going to happen and you're going to have to live with that." She'd been carefully shuffling closer while she spoke until she was just in range to lunge for a tight hug, arms wrapped around his torso, right as she finished speaking. He went tense all over for more than a heartbeat. But. He relaxed. And one arm came up and wrapped around her shoulders. Then the other one. And suddenly he all but collapsed against her and she became a pillar holding him up. He tucked his face against her shoulder and knew he was probably getting hair in his mouth but he didn't seem to care.
It seemed to last forever. The two of them, in a currently deserted corridor. Kind of enemies, definitely not friends. One keeping the other from totally falling apart.
After endless moments, he shuddered slightly. He lifted his head, as carefully composed as he had been, still ragged around the edges but slightly less frayed than before. He dropped his arms, hers fell a heartbeat later and she stepped back. She caught his eyes, nodded once, and then turned and left.
Quiet sobs rack his frame, and he draws her lifeless frame close. His shoulders jerk with the effort of containing his grief, and the breaths he draws come in ragged gasps. He shakes his head as he looks down at her, once more lifting a hand to cradle her face, so peaceful in death. His vision blurs with unshed tears; he does not bother to wipe them away. Lets them come. Lets them remind him of what he could have had. He stays there, the muggleborn witch--the brightest of their age--limp in his arms. Sways slightly, the weight of his grief too much for his own shoulders. He leans down, far enough to rest his chin on the crown of her head and closes his eyes, releasing the tears that escape silently. As he moves, however, something slips, falls onto the hands he clasps around her still form. He tilts his head back, puzzled brows knitting together as he stares down at her. His eyes widen when he recognize the gleam of his Time Turner winking at him where it had fallen. Realizes it must have slipped out of his pocket.
He stills. The Time Turner! He remembers, then, this trinket he'd found in the Astronomy Tower, with a note in Nott's sweeping hand. You've got all the time in the world, Malfoy. Get it right, his note had read. Draco's heart hammers a frantic rhythm as a realization hits him.
He gently releases Hermione, settling her body back down onto the ground and carefully folding her arms over her chest. "I'm going to fix this," he promises her in a soft whisper. He glances down at the small golden device in the palm of his hands and takes in a shaking breath. Breathing a silent prayer on which he hangs all of his remaining hope, he twists the moving pieces and shuts his eyes, concentrating on a concrete moment in his past.
The Time Turner glows softly, its light steadily increasing. He curls his fingers around it, body tensing as he feels a sharp pull not unlike apparition. The last thing he sees is a blazing flash of light before darkness takes him.