Chapter Text
It took several moments for Draco and Hermione to form proper words. The shock was still fresh in their systems, and neither could bring themselves to ask the question that hung heavily in the air between them.
Hermione had collapsed to the ground in front of him at some point, and she held him while his body shook. Her cheeks were damp with her own tears that she hadn’t realized she’d let fall.
Something about this moment between them and the raw, real version of Draco she’d been privy to over the last few weeks had her heart clenching with her own kind of grief. From what she’d gathered, he’d been living with her death and barely hanging on. This type of remorse and loss was not of her own life, but of his.
Once their breathing had eased and the thumping of Draco’s living heart had slowed, Hermione dared to break the silence.
“How can you see me?” she asked, her voice hoarse from the tightness that lingered in her throat.
Draco finally pulled away from her, his eyes glassy as he took her in. “I don’t know. I’ve never…”
Hermione waited for him to find the words, though she knew that his mind must have been reeling the same as hers. Her own thoughts were so frantic and jumbled that she couldn’t make sense of them; the moment one was in reach, it seemed to slip through her fingers like the sand around them.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, Hermione,” he whispered.
She tried not to be affected by the sound of her given name on his lips. It was something she was still getting used to. Regardless, her brows furrowed at his words.
“Working with spirits, I mean,” Draco clarified. “I’ve never encountered one quite like you.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she mused, trying to lighten the heaviness between them.
He laughed, and the sound was so genuine that it brought a smile to Hermione’s face. It had been so long since she’d heard anyone laugh. Godric, it had been years since she’d had a real conversation at all.
“Everything is a compliment when it comes to you.”
The sentiment hit her hard in the chest. It warmed her that he felt so strongly about her, but she was still aware of the fact that this connection, whatever he’d felt for her for so many years, was mostly one-sided.
Hermione barely knew him.
Draco seemed to sense her wariness, and he quickly cleared his throat and adopted a more serious, inquisitive look. “You’ve been lingering around the grounds recently, haven’t you?”
She nodded, her gaze darting up to the silhouette of the castle just over Draco’s shoulder. It looked magnificent in the early light of the morning, the stones glittering as the bright rays of sun warmed them from the chill of the highlands.
“I felt you that evening in the graveyard after the ceremony. You came back,” he whispered.
“It was time. I’d been gone for so long, and I missed everyone. It took me days to work up the courage. Honestly, I thought everyone would hate me or not want to see me. I thought—”
“Wait,” Draco interrupted. “You mean you didn’t…”
“No,” she answered. A fresh tear tracked down her cheek as the reality of her situation—of what she was—hit her for what felt like the millionth time. It hadn’t gotten any easier to stomach. “I didn’t know I was dead until… Well, until I saw my name on the stone, actually. A bit of a shock.”
He slumped back, a horrible look of despair etching into his tired features. “Gods, Hermione…”
She held up a hand to stop him. She knew it was foolish. Snape had reminded her of it every single day since he’d encountered her sobbing against the slab of marble. It was still a mystery to her how she hadn’t known.
“It’s fine, Malfoy. Really.”
A beat of silence passed, but she watched as his brows slowly knit together and his eyes flared with what she could only describe as anger. It was the same awful look she’d seen on his face so many times in their youth, only now, she wasn’t sure that it was entirely misplaced.
“It’s not fine. None of this is fucking fine. You saw me at your grave, heard the things I said.” His voice was loud against the silence of the landscape around them. The sound of his emotions hammered into the atmosphere, cracking the delicate and peaceful balance that nature had created in Hogwarts’ shadow.
“You’re gone, Granger. I can see you now, but that doesn’t make it any easier. We’re barely hanging on without you. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep it all together. Theo’s going to drink or smoke or cry himself to death. Ginevra says that Harry can barely take a proper shower because the amount of water coming down from the spout nearly sends him into paralysis. Pansy’s so fucking sad that she can’t even make a joke at someone else’s expense.”
Hermione fought not to flinch, but if Draco noticed her reaction, he ignored it.
He didn’t pause. His rant continued, though she could barely stomach another piece of the harsh reality they all faced without her. “Neville and Luna are the only things tethering Blaise to reality. Weasley’s so bloody scared of losing another friend that he doesn’t sleep. And I… Fuck, Hermione, I can’t do this without you anymore.”
The coldness she had endured since learning of her fate returned tenfold, and her spirit was all but frozen by the repercussions of her own death. Her heart shattered with each truth he spoke, bit by bit, until it felt as though there was nothing left. She was a shell of the witch she once was, dead or not.
But she still didn’t understand how Draco had gotten to such a place. It was clear that he cared for her, more than she’d ever fathomed to be possible given their tumultuous history, though she wasn’t sure what had changed.
“Why?” It was all she could bring herself to say.
He looked at her, his entire body stricken with conviction. His gaze was so full of something Hermione couldn’t quite place. Regret? Guilt? Shame?
Love?
She took a moment to catalogue his features, now tinged by the years of suffering he’d laid bare for her just moments ago. His eyes were still that brilliant shade of silver, but deep, purple circles lined the delicate skin below his lashes. His hair remained bright and blond, though the difference now was that it was unkempt, like he had spent far too many sleepless nights running his hands through the locks.
Hermione understood then that even after all that had happened, after all he had done and fallen victim to, Draco still didn’t have a choice.
His father’s alliance had forced him to play the villain. The ideals that had been instilled in him since birth meant that he would always be tainted by his own past. His wand, lying dormant in his hand on top of the Astronomy Tower, had ensured that he would be punished for his disobedience.
In a way, Hermione supposed that her death had just been another tragic card in the hand he’d been dealt.
“It’s always been you, Hermione,” he rasped against the wind. “No matter how hard I fought it, how much I knew I shouldn’t want you, it’s always been you.”
“But what changed?” Her voice took on a desperate tone. She needed to understand. She needed at least this answer. “You hated me.”
“No,” he answered immediately. “I was a foolish child. There isn’t a day that’s gone by that I haven’t suffered your absence from the world. Trust me.”
She wanted to, so desperately, but no matter how much the morning sun and his vehement sentiments tried to warm her, they could not reach the depths of her soul. As if on cue, a gust of wind whipped around them, and Hermione shivered on instinct.
Draco eyed her, his gaze shifting to something resembling pity. She had to fight not to resent the expression that graced his tired-looking features. It felt as though lately, that had been the only look bestowed upon her. Though she supposed it looked less out of place on Malfoy than it had on Snape.
She turned in an effort to look anywhere but at him, suddenly overcome with the notion that they knew two different versions of each other—her, the Death Eater that Draco had once been required to be, and him, the war heroine that Hermione had been forcibly molded into. Neither felt like their true forms after so many years.
She found herself entranced by the lapping shore near their feet. It clawed across the rocks and sandy terrain, fighting to get her back into its horrid waters. She took in a ragged breath, one that mirrored how uneasy she felt now that she’d realized the implications of where exactly she stood, and quickly diverted her gaze again, desperate to look somewhere—anywhere—but at the place in which she took her last living breath.
Her eyes were frantic for a moment until they settled on the looming silhouette of Hogwarts. It calmed her some to see the familiar spires and large, stained-glass windows. It seemed to speak to her, its calm and warm demeanor drowning out the chilling whisper of the lake behind her.
Draco seemed to catch onto her wandering gaze and finally spoke again. “Would you like to go somewhere? Maybe we can talk somewhere less… Well, somewhere that isn’t here.”
“Yes,” she replied, nodding. “I’d like that.”
They began to make their way towards the footpath side by side, but not really together. Though they were physically close, Hermione couldn’t have felt more distant from the wizard next to her.
She released a breath once they had made it onto the grassy hill and off the rocky shore of the Black Lake. Her lungs seemed to relax; she hadn’t noticed how tight they had felt when she was closer to the water. Her head felt lighter, too, like the growing distance was creating space between her soul and her killer.
The reminder nearly had her stopping in her tracks. The water had only been an accomplice. Someone else had her blood on their hands. She was no closer to figuring out who her murderer was than she had been when she’d paced back and forth along the pebbles below.
Draco turned as if he had sensed her train of thought gaining speed once more, moving faster and faster until it would inevitably derail and cause Hermione to spiral.
She cast a sideways glance at him, expecting his gaze to glisten with sorrow. Instead, a new kind of frenzied worry clouded his silvery eyes.
“Hermione?” he called. He seemed to look through her, not at her.
Her heart rate began to climb again. Had all of this been some falsity of her mind? Had the mere presence in front of the lake caused her to lose her sanity entirely?
Draco reached out, his fingertips barely grazing over her shoulder.
“Hermione?!” he said again, far more frantically than before.
She found herself stunned and stumbled back a few paces, the pebbles of the shoreline sharp against her feet. She was overcome with a sudden grief, one that felt like a punch to the stomach, a low-blow to her already fragile state.
It hadn’t been real. Draco couldn’t see her. No one could see her.
Panic flooded her senses the same way it had when she’d first seen her name carved into the memorial stone. It was like she was discovering her fate all over again, like she had been once more thrust into the purgatory she’d been living in for more than five years.
She was trapped. Alone. Devastated.
Her mind was nearly in shambles, the once-solid and most trustworthy part of her failing against the harshness of her demise. She stumbled back even closer to the lake, barely catching herself before she fell onto the pebbles below.
Malfoy’s eyes searched around them as he seemed to look everywhere but at her. Finally, Hermione collapsed harshly onto the damp shore just as the first tear of heartache cascaded down her pale cheek.
Draco seemed to catch a bit of movement from the corner of his eye, and within seconds, he rushed to Hermione’s side. He held her tightly when he reached her, but she was nearly inconsolable.
“I’ve got you, Hermione. It’s alright.”
She shook against him, words leaving her in a breathless chant. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”
He squeezed her tighter with each utterance of the phrase, as though his physical presence around her would quiet her mind.
“This is real, Hermione,” he reassured her. “I’m here. I can see you.”
She sank further against him, almost melting under the weight of her sorrow. Hermione had always been rational. Practical. She’d met every challenge she’d faced with determination and wit. She was the brightest witch of her age, the top of her class, the brains of the Golden Trio.
None of it mattered now. Her legacy lived on, but her soul lingered for an entirely different reason, one that contradicted everything about who she once was.
Hermione hadn’t survived the Battle of Hogwarts. She had been another casualty in the war. Her loyalty and knowledge and bravery hadn’t made a difference.
She was at her breaking point.
But then, she remembered all that Draco had told her in the numerous times he had fallen to his knees at her headstone and confessed to her grave. In a way, it had been as cleansing for her as it was for him. While it was painful to hear of her friends’ continuous grief, it drove her to find answers. They had needed closure just the same as she did.
A swell of renewed purpose bloomed in her chest, and after a moment, she lifted her head to look Draco in the eyes. Even if he hadn’t reassured her with his words, the way his eyes gleamed as he looked at her would have been all the confirmation she needed that he could see her again.
“The lake,” she whispered.
He nodded in understanding. “You must be tied to the shores. Maybe that’s why I can see you here. Your spirit is stronger where you…”
Hermione answered for him when it was clear he couldn’t. “Died.”
The lapping waters echoed distantly as Draco swallowed. “I still can’t bring myself to say it.”
She broke her stare from him, though there was an unfamiliar tug on her heart when she did so, as if her soul was begging her not to look anywhere else. Her gaze shifted back to the Black Lake, and she began to chew her lip in thought, falling back into her habit of dissecting new information and finding reason within it.
“Tell me about that day,” she said to him, still watching the ebb and flow of the small waves.
An empty chuckle left him, but Draco settled against the large rock behind them, cozying himself up to tell her about her last day alive from his own perspective.
“It was absolute chaos from the moment it began, even on Voldemort’s side,” he began. “He had the numbers, but it just wasn’t the same. His followers… Their hearts weren’t in it the way the Order’s were.”
Hermione hummed in acknowledgement. It wasn’t hard for her to believe that the Order of the Phoenix, while smaller in size, was far more determined to fight. The stakes were far too high. There was too much to lose.
Draco continued, “I had always been a bit doubtful of what I’d been taught, but you were the one who really solidified how ridiculous it all was. You were everything I was taught to hate, but I just couldn’t fathom thinking that you were unworthy of the magic you possessed. It never felt quite right after I met you for the first time, no matter how many times I lied to myself or had it beaten into me. In the end, defecting was one of the easiest things I had to do. It was the only choice I made that was mine. ”
He blew out a breath and shook his head at whatever memories crossed his mind then. Hermione had never imagined the implications that Draco’s wavering loyalties would have had on him. To her, his disdain for what he was raised to believe was entirely justified. She hadn’t paused to consider how dangerous it would have been to be in his shoes.
Hermione remembered reading about Draco being reformed in the same article in which she’d discovered her cause of death, which felt more fictional now after the revelation that the actual cause was something far darker. Was she truly the reason Draco Malfoy had betrayed his master and left everything he’d known behind?
“I was looking for you when I ran into Harry. It was the first time I asked for help, and for some reason that only Merlin knows, he listened. From then on, I fought alongside him. I kept an eye out for you, but the battle was still waging on. I thought that if Potter and Weasley weren’t worried about where you were, I shouldn’t be either. But gods, Hermione, I so desperately wanted to find you. Maybe if I had, things would have ended differently."
There were tears shining in his eyes now, but he pressed on, his gaze never leaving her. Hermione found she couldn’t look away.
“I don’t know how much you know about what happened when we found you. The fucking Prophet wouldn’t stop printing your story. It took a cease and desist from nearly all of us before they stopped plastering your face and final moments on their bloody headlines.” His voice wavered with anger, but it was laced with so much sorrow that it could hardly be classified as rage.
Tears finally began to fall down his cheeks, and Hermione tracked each one until they splashed onto his hands, which were tightly clasped in his lap. His left thumb rubbed back and forth on his opposite knuckles in a self-soothing gesture.
“Harry found you,” he whispered. “I’ve never heard anyone scream like that.” He choked back a sob, and his lip quivered as he took a breath to try to steady himself. “You were so pale, Hermione. I didn’t think I’d see you without the spark in your eyes.” His lip quivered as he inhaled shakily. “I’ll never forget that day. It haunts all of us. We never expected to lose you, and when it happened, we didn’t know what to do. And now, it’s been five years and we’re all just as broken as we were that day.”
The delicate balance that she straddled between composure and breaking down finally tilted. She let out a muffled cry as her hands flew to her mouth. She had read about the discovery of her body in the Daily Prophet article, but hearing it from Draco, listening to him recount his own experience, was gut-wrenching.
Her guilt felt never-ending. Completely inescapable. She thought that she would endure it forever. Even if she managed to move on, to pass into whatever realm waited for her next, she would feel it. This pain would never leave her.
The identity of her murderer didn’t matter, and yet, it felt like the most important piece of the puzzle. She was trapped between acceptance and vengeance. Would the blow of this new information only hurt them all further, or would they be healed knowing who to blame?
Did they even know?
Draco hadn’t mentioned anything about her murder, only what she’d been like when they’d found her, and Hermione wasn’t sure if she could physically handle the emotional backlash that she would surely be met with when she told him. In a way, it felt like it wasn’t even her story to tell. No part of her life had been, really. From the Prophet articles to the rumors, to her reputation; none of it had belonged to her.
She looked at Draco, tears streaming down both of their cheeks in a heartbreaking race to fall first. His eyes glimmered like diamonds in the early morning light, bright against his pale skin. Hers were sullen and cold, a harsh reminder of the warmth and life she lacked.
She hated this—all of it—but there was nothing they could do. She was gone. They all had to face it. Endure it. Live it.
Even if it killed them.
“I’m so sorry, Draco,” she whispered weakly.
“No,” he replied, nearly crumpling beside her. “No, Hermione. I’m sorry. You are the last person ever to deserve this. I just wish… I wish I had been able to…”
She nodded in understanding, though his final word never came. She still felt that they were miles away, both in knowing each other and in the states of their souls, but she knew that they had never been more similar.
“I love you, Hermione. I know it probably doesn’t make any sense to you now, but I never stopped loving you.”
Draco Malfoy cared for her. He had fought for her, in life and in death. He had found solace in her friends, in her memory.
Now, the world in which she felt the same didn’t feel so far away.
She thought of him at her grave, the way he poured his heart out endlessly to nothing but her headstone. The man that he was now was someone she wanted to know, someone she wondered if she could care for the way he did for his friends—the way he did for her.
Hermione wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The sun that had steadily risen in the sky was now covered by a thick layer of clouds. The early summer breeze would have been warm in the places she’d loved—the courtyard, her common room, the desk she’d preferred next to the windows in the library—but there, at the shore of the Black Lake, it chilled her.
Beside her, Draco had been drifting in and out of sleep, and his lolling head made her realize how tired she was. She hadn’t yet worked out if ghosts needed sleep, but regardless of the rules of this purgatory, it was all she wanted.
When he slumped against her shoulder, she shifted, laying him down until his head rested gently on her lap.
Once his breathing had leveled into one of deep slumber, she dared to answer him.
“I think I can love you, too, Draco. I just need time. Please, let me have time.”