“Please . . . please, Draco,” she whimpered.
With trembling fingers and a racing heart, he slowly cupped her flaming cheek. The sight that met his silver gaze spoke volumes: her breathing ragged, her eyes shut tightly, her skin flushed and damp with perspiration she lay in front of him on the bed.
But this couldn’t honestly be real. She would never ask him to do that – she was Hermione Jean Granger, after all. This had to be a dream. And a vivid, visceral one at that.
There had been a time when he would gladly have obeyed, but things had changed a lot in all those years since the end of the war. He simply couldn’t do it; too much had happened.
She writhed on the sheets and his expression changed, tensed; it was all he could do not to give in to her. “No.”
Her eyes flew open and instantly found his; steely grey locked with modest brown. Her gaze was clouded, his tortured. “Please, Draco – I want it!” A desperate plea, tumbling off her lips in a whisper before she could stop the words from spilling out.
“I can’t!” he replied much more forcefully than intended; teeth clenched and hands curled into tight fists. When she squirmed again, he had to avert his gaze – he couldn’t bear it. It was just too much.
“Please, Draco – it’s eating me up from inside and there’s no other way to end it! They’ve tried everything - we both know that! Please,” she moaned; eyes scrunched shut tightly, her frighteningly bony fingers clutching the pillow convulsively – her knuckles instantly turning white.
“I can’t, damn it!” He whirled around sharply, turning his back on her, and ran a hand through his pale hair in agitation. His fingers wouldn’t stop trembling.
“With the others you could – I’ve seen it,” she ground out through gritted teeth, her words ending in a pained whimper.
“The others I—" Didn’t LOVE! “—didn’t care about in the least!”
“You don’t care about me anymore, either!”
“Of course I do! Why else would I be here?!”
“Then end it!” Her voice broke under the strain of her plea.
He turned back around slowly and watched her with troubled eyes, silent.
“Draco, I know you can do it. Please.” The tense lines on her face had almost smoothed out, all but betraying the condition she was in. “For old times’ sake. Remember?”
“I—“ Oh, he did remember. All he did was remember. Every fight, every fuck. Every tear, every touch. Every laugh, every lament.
“I’m begging you, Draco.”
Suddenly, his face was set in grim determination – he had made his final decision. With a deep breath, his fingers firmly curled around his wand, he aimed; eyes firmly trained on her, a bitter taste in his mouth.
She opened her eyes again; relief and gratitude forming an alliance with affection in her warm gaze. “Thank you,” she breathed, and a gentle smile tugged on the corners of her dry lips, barely noticing the wetness on his cheeks.
“Avada Kedavra!”
When the nurses found Hermione Granger’s lifeless body, a peaceful smile graced her relaxed features and Draco Malfoy’s cold arm was wrapped lovingly around her in irrevocable stillness.