Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Victim of the Fall	By : PrettyDesdemona Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 32726 -:- Recommendations : 5 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe or any of its characters. I do not make any money off this story. Only love!

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
CHAPTER 17

SORRY I AM

“I guess I never loved you quite as well as the way you loved me. I guess I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am.”

Hermione’s concerns from the previous week were gone from her mind by Friday evening when she was getting ready to leave school after eating dinner in the great hall with the tovarasi. She had been most worried about Isobel but her friend seemed to have found a new font of determination within herself in the space of a few days. She didn’t seem entirely happy but she appeared to be resolute and stronger. Consequentially, Hermione had put her worries to bed, assuring herself that Isobel would be fine. The only moment that gave her pause for concern was when Isobel had stopped her at the front gates of Hogwarts as her and Malfoy walked to Hogsmeade station to apparate back to her flat.

Isobel gave Malfoy an uncomfortable look before he told Hermione he would meet her at her flat and strode away.

Hermione looked at her friend, her eyebrows raised in question.

Isobel cleared her throat, “I just wanted to tell you… I know this sounds bit odd… but I wanted to say thank you.” she stammered.

Hermione frowned in confusion. “For what?”

“Well… You’re a great friend… You know what I am, where I’ve come from and you like me anyway. So… Thanks. I guess I needed that. I needed to know someone likes me as I am.”

Hermione did not say that this was mostly because she ignored Isobel’s past and chose not to think about it.

“Well, you’re welcome. And… Likewise. Thanks for like me despite what I’ve come from.”

Isobel grinned sheepishly.

“I should let you go. You and Malfoy probably have dinner plans, no doubt.” she said wryly. Hermione rolled her eyes, grinning.

She hadn’t bothered correcting the tovarasi in their belief that she and Malfoy were a couple. It was probably better that they thought that rather than knowing the truth.

“Ok. Well, good bye Hermione.” Isobel said with finality.

She did not wait for Hermione to respond, turning on her heel and striding back up to the castle.

Hermione was left standing, staring at the patch of snow Isobel had just stood on.

Her friend was not usually so demonstrative and Hermione resolved to talk to her on Saturday night when the female members of the tovarasi had their usual dinner together.

But on Saturday, Isobel seemed normal. Again, not happy but fine enough. Hermione watched the girl with suspicion, but didn’t know what else she could do aside from keep an eye on her.

She hoped that if anything was really wrong, Isobel would come to her.

Hermione worked for the remainder of the weekend and was sad to finish her shift on Sunday. As she was closing the doors of Flourish and Blotts on Sunday evening, preparing to lock up, Malfoy slipped inside. He was soaked through from the rain that was pouring down on Diagon Alley.

“I have something.” he said in a low voice, gesturing towards the bag slung over his shoulder. Hermione nodded and beckoned for him to follow her.

She said a hurried good night to Graham and rushed up the spiral stairs and into her flat, Malfoy following her.

Once inside, he dug into his bag and pulled out a large, leather bound book, handing it to Hermione.

“And this is?” she asked, staring at the cover which boasted no title.

“A book on blood magic from the Manor.” he said, moving past her and into the kitchen.

Hermione’s heart lurched in excitement as she followed him. “Does it…?”

“Have the recipe for Zeitei Otrava? No.” Hermione looked crestfallen. “But I thought it might be useful. I warn you though, it’s dark. Very dark.”

“Anti-muggle?”

He nodded. “Very much so.”

Malfoy flicked the jug on and retrieved two mugs from the cupboard above the sink.

“Go sit down. I’ll bring this in.” he said, as if this were entirely normal.

Hermione did a double take, staring at Malfoy in wonder before he shooed her with a waved of his hand and she turned to go and collapse in the couch.

He had never made her tea before. It was always her who fixed them beverages. She came to the conclusion that he must be comfortable enough in her flat now to feel free to rifle through her cupboards. Hermione didn’t know if she liked that.

Malfoy joined her a moment later, handing her a cup of tea and dropping to the floor in front of the coffee table. Hermione curled her legs under her and took a sip.

“It’s not sweet enough.” she grunted but continued to drink it all the same.

Malfoy began dragging rolls of parchment out of his bag, along with a quill, a bottle of ink and a few heavy looking textbooks. Hermione raised her eyebrows in question.

“Charms essay.” he said simply and she nodded.

She lay back on the couch and propped the book Malfoy had given her up on her chest. She began to read.

He wasn’t exaggerating; it was a dark book, nothing like Bastet’s Line. She struggled through the first few chapters, which detailed how best to harvest blood from unsuspecting victims, and had to restrain herself from vomiting when she got up to chapter six which described many potions that could only be brewed or cast with the aid of muggleborn blood, taken by force. Apparently the author felt that the fear in the blood was a necessary occurrence for successful potion making.

After reading for an hour or so, Hermione began to feel her muscles cramping. Her mind ached and squirmed from the content she’d been filling it with. Unfortunately, she had so far found nothing that she thought might be helpful when it came to the Zeitei Otrava.

She stretched her legs out on the couch, feeling her joints click and groan. As she sat up, rubbing the back of her neck, she set the heavy book on the coffee table, feeling very much as if she’d had enough for the night. She wanted to set it on fire.

Hermione sensed Malfoy shift silently on the floor in front of her, he himself slumped on his side, sheets of parchment strewn all around him. She listened as his quill went back to scratching and sighed, picking up her cold tea and taking a sip.

The darkness of the night was permeating the room and the darkness of the book was festering in her head. She needed conversation. She needed to begin forgetting some of the things she’d been reading.

Malfoy cleared his throat, pre-empting her before she could speak, and she looked across at him. She found him sitting up and looking at her curiously.

“What?” she asked.

“I have a question.” he replied.

She mentally prepared herself for the borage of inquiries he no doubt had about what she thought of the book he’d given her. “Ok.”

He took a breath and Hermione thought for a moment that he seemed slightly nervous.

“Did you and Weasley ever sleep together, Granger?”

She gaped unattractively. This was the very first personal question he had ever asked her. Really. He’d never even greeted her with a ‘how are you?’ before, and now he was questioning her about her sex life? Where was this coming from? She wondered if perhaps this was another one of his experiments.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Please don’t call him Weasley like that Malfoy.”

“Why?” he asked innocently.

“Because you make it sound like an insult.”

He shrugged and said matter-of-factly, “I don’t like him.”

“I know that. But you don’t like me either and you’re studying in my house. Just remember that he’s someone I care about… Cared about.” she corrected, her stomach lurching and pain filling up her heart. Hermione got up and walked into the kitchen, taking her tepid cup of tea with her. She pitched it down the sink and filled a glass from her cupboard with water from the tap.

She didn’t like this conversation. She wanted out. He was triggering so many different parts of her she could barely keep up with them. She walked shakily back into the lounge room and sat down on the couch, staring at him seriously.

“Why are you asking me something like that?” she asked warily.

He shrugged, “Because it suddenly occurred to me that you two might have done it and I was curious.”

Curious? How was he suddenly curious about her past? About her? After they’d been working side by side for months, now he wanted to know something relevant to her life?

Malfoy was looking at her expectantly. When she continued to glare back suspiciously he rolled his eyes. “Stop analysing it Granger. What’s the problem?”

“I can’t tell you something like that.” said Hermione uncomfortably.

“Why?”

“Because you’re… Malfoy. You’re…” she couldn’t think of how to finish her sentence without making him angry.

“What? A death eater?” he asked, suddenly defensive.

“No! I wasn’t going to say that!”

“You were thinking it.” he said shrewdly.

“I was not!” she growled stubbornly. But that was exactly what she was thinking. Up until this point their relationship had been clinical, easy. Hermione had no difficulty being detached and scientific with Malfoy, that was justifiable, but sharing things like this? That just wasn’t. That made them more than colleagues and took them into territory that Hermione didn’t even want to think about. And the exact reason she did not want to think about it, was because he was a death eater.

“So just tell me then. Have some faith, Granger.”

Hermione knew him. He would push and manipulate and prod and insult until she finally told him what he wanted to know. So she decided to just give in to it. It didn’t matter in the end what he knew about her, she could still keep him at arm’s length.

She sighed, “Alright… No. We didn’t. There was no opportunity.”

Malfoy frowned. “You lived with him for over a year. How was there no opportunity?”

She shivered and said quietly. “He didn’t want to.”

“Why?” asked Malfoy brutally. When she seemed disinclined to answer, he spoke again. “Just try honesty for a change, Granger. Get ugly.”

She thought about that sentence for a moment. Get ugly. Alright, he wanted ugly? She’d give it to him.

“I will if you will.” she said challengingly. She could beat him at his own game. He had hard questions for her? Well she had even harder questions for him.

Malfoy glared at her for a moment, his mouth a thin, hard line. “You first.”

“Fine.” she took a breath, “I think that our relationship only began because he had an attack of, ‘well we’re going to die anyway, may as well’. After the war, it lasted for a bit and we seemed happy… We did… other things, but we didn’t ever have sex. After a little while… It all stopped, he just went cold. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know. He wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t touch me.”

“Did you want him to touch you?” asked Malfoy, an intensity in his voice that Hermione couldn’t quite define.

She scoffed and crossed her arms, “Of course I did! I’m a woman, Malfoy. I have felt desire, you know. And yes, I desired him. Very much.”

Malfoy stared at her for a moment and she held his gaze. She didn’t have any idea what this line of questioning was about but she wasn’t going to back out now. He looked back at his discarded essay and twitched the parchment towards him.

Hermione laughed, “You’re not getting off that easy. Now, I have a question for you.”

Malfoy nodded without looking at her, as if resigned to his fate.

“Have you ever had sex?” she asked.

Malfoy shook his head stiffly, “No. Never.”

“Have you done anything else?” she pressed.

He glared at her, “That’s more than one question.”

“You asked me more than one. Just answer it.” said Hermione stubbornly.

He sighed, “No. Never.”

Hermione’s eyes widened, “But I thought… Pansy…”

“That’s exactly what she wanted everyone to think.” he scoffed.

Hermione thought for a moment, and then said wryly, “Are you gay?”

“No, Granger, I’m not gay.” he deadpanned.

“Then how…?”

He held up a hand, “Ok, I think you’ve filled your quota for questions asked. I’ve another one for you.” he leant forward on the table, propped up on his elbows. “Why aren’t you with your parents?”

Hermione wanted to rip his throat out. She shook her head. “I don’t want to answer that.” Malfoy gave her a knowing look that called her on her cowardice. “Fine. I don’t want to face them.” she said through gritted teeth.

“Why?” he asked in a low voice. More challenge.

Hermione clenched her fists and stared down her nose at him. “I had to damage their minds Malfoy.”

“I’m aware of that. What makes you think they wouldn’t want to see their own daughter?”

Hermione felt her heart kneeling down, it throbbed. “Because they ran in fear from me. The last thing they saw me do was raise my wand to them, telling them that I had to wipe their memories, make them forget me. They didn’t want to. They refused! I tried reasoning with them… It didn’t work. So I told them they had no choice. My mother ran from me. I had to stun her. It hit her right between her shoulder blades as she was running through the back door and she fell on the steps. She broke her nose. I had to mend it… And my father, he was screaming at me, he was scared. Her blood was everywhere. I had to stun him too… They won’t want to know me after all of that! They’re better off in Australia without the memory of running in fear from their only daughter.”

Her voice was cold and hard and she held Malfoy’s gaze throughout her explanation. But inside, her emotions were crashing against the walls of her mind. She had never, ever, told another living soul that information. No one knew.

Except for Malfoy.

“I don’t think that’s true. If your parents love you, they’ll understand. When they come back and see the damage the dark lord did… They’ll get it.” his voice was soft, reassuring. Hermione supposed he was trying to help, but it didn’t. She didn’t want his pity. She wanted his face connecting repeatedly with her fist.

Hermione shook her head, her eyes closed, determined to keep control of her emotions. “No. I can’t bring them back. If anything, I just wish I had a way of knowing they’re ok. Even if they are just Wendell and Monika Wilkins. I’d like to know they’re alive and safe.”

“He didn’t know where they were, Granger.” said Malfoy, understanding exactly where her thoughts were leading.

Hermione nodded. The silence hung around them like a wet blanket but Hermione hadn’t finished with him. She had her own ugly question prepared as it had been roiling about in the back of her mind every since she’d seen him that day all those months ago in Diagon Alley.

“I have one for you.” she said ominously, a cruel undertone in her words.

Malfoy nodded, meeting her head on. “Fine.”

“Why are your parents in Azkaban, while you, a proven death eater, walk free?”

Hermione expected many different answers to this. The top of her list was money, the Malfoy fortune had saved him. Next were high ranking friends, then power and manipulation, perhaps begging. The one thing she did not expect was what he said next.

“I… I testified against my father.” there was no strength in his voice, no power or challenge. Only guilt.

Hermione could hear his guilt so tangibly that it may as well have been written across his forehead.

In that moment, all her barriers broke down. A tear slipped down her cheek. She had heard people say, many times, that the world was not black and white, that it was not split up into good people and death eaters. But it hadn’t really hit her until right then. She realised that even if Malfoy was evil, even if he was bigoted and full of shit, he still had to see things and do things that would haunt him for the rest of his life. And sending his own father to prison was one of them.

Malfoy watched the tear slide down her cheek.

Was he moved by it? Hermione didn’t know. But she knew that the challenge was gone. They weren’t opponents now, but two people standing on a boundary line, staring out at the world that had destroyed them. Together.

Hermione opened her mouth. She would talk until she had nothing left to say, nothing left to give. And she hoped he would to.

It was time they had a real conversation.

And this was it.

The conversation lasted well into the night. At times, Hermione hated Malfoy; at others she was overcome by the ridiculous desire to hug him, to comfort him. She told him things she’d never told anyone and got the feeling he was being as equally open. The boundaries of tact and modesty had long ago been broken down between them because of their research, so she spoke to him brashly, graphically, and he spoke the same way to her. They concealed nothing from each other. Nothing was hidden. It wasn’t about trust or love but curiosity, empathy and compassion. They spoke to each other as if the other person was another mystery beginning to be solved. Hermione didn’t feel burdened by Malfoy’s pain, she felt enlightened by it. His insight into the other side of the war showed her that she was right to trust him, right to want to be around him. Right to want this conversation.

At two am, she finally stood up, stretching, her legs numb from being curled under her for so long. She smiled at Malfoy. He smiled back.

There was peace. A truce. An understanding.

Hermione went to the kitchen and made more tea for them, then returned to the lounge to find Malfoy slumped on the couch.

“The floor was beginning to get painful.” he said.

She nodded and sat down next to him, realising as she did, that this was the first time they had shared the couch. In all the months that they had been researching together, it had always been one on the couch and one on the floor.

It wasn’t as if it was small, no, it was a three seater, but it felt small to her when the two of them shared it.

“So.” she said.

“Yeah.” he responded.

She sighed. She wanted to continue talking. But for once, she’d run out of things to say. She didn’t want their peace to end, didn’t want the atmosphere to disperse.

Hermione opened her mouth to speak again when suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, she felt a chaotic, incomprehensible despair take hold in her stomach and flare up through her rib cage. Despair and yearning. Yearning like she’d never felt it before. It was powerful and all consuming. She let out a keening cry that she could not suppress and grabbed at her throat, instantly panicking. There was no explanation for the emotion at all. One second she was feeling happy and contented, the next she wanted to kill herself. She wanted to throw herself from the balcony.

She stood up to do exactly this, when she noticed Malfoy with an arm wrapped around his stomach and his hand fisted in his hair, an expression of pure, unadulterated agony on his face.

He looked up at her, her panic reflected in his eyes.

“Do you feel it?” he gasped, his voice wretched.

Hermione nodded and her fingernails dug into her palms as another wave of pain crashed through her mind.

He jumped to his feet. “What the fuck!”

“Is it the Dividing Line?” Hermione cried, panicked.

“Did you cast Auxilium Granger?! Am I feeling your pain!?” Malfoy shouted as if he couldn’t hear properly.

“No! I didn’t cast anything! I don’t know where it came from!” she sobbed.

Malfoy was grasping at his clothes as if he wanted to tear his own skin off, Hermione saw tears gathering in his eyes. She grabbed onto his wrists to stop him doing an injury to himself.

“Wait! Wait! Stop! This isn’t ours! This is… Do you think… The tovarasi?” she said urgently.

Malfoy looked at her with dawning horror. “If we’re… Then one of them must be…”

“Let’s go to Blaise’s. He’s closest. If there’s nothing wrong with him, we’ll know it’s something else.” said Hermione, cutting across him.

Malfoy did not argue. He caught up his cloak and wrapped it around himself as Hermione hurtled into her bedroom to grab her own.

They pushed through her front door, every sound clanging in Hermione’s ears as the deep despair spread through her body like a disease. They slid and tripped down the spiral staircase and ran together out of the shop, into the open.

Diagon Alley was completely dark and deserted. And eerie silence hung in the air and their breath rose in steam as it cascaded out of their mouths. She could hear her own heart beat like a war drum thudding in her ears. There were no lamps lit, no lights in windows; it was as if they had passed into a world where they were the only two people alive. Malfoy grabbed Hermione’s hand in his and began running with her down towards Gringotts, in the direction of Blaise’s apartment.

They pounded down the street, the sound of their shoes on the flagstones echoing through the dark street horrifically, until they reached the wizarding bank. All of a sudden, Malfoy skidded to a stop and grabbed Hermione, pulling them both into the darkness under the eaves of a shop nearby. She was about to question his action when he put a finger to his lips. She listened and heard it too. More pounding footsteps that were not their own.

To their collective alarm, Blaise rounded the corner in front of them from the other side of Gringotts. Malfoy and Hermione charged out of the shadows to meet him. He took in Malfoy’s agonised expression and the tear tracks running down Hermione’s cheeks.

“You feel it!?” he rasped, gasping for breath.

They both nodded.

“We were coming to your place.” said Hermione, her teeth chattering.

“I was coming to you.” he said. “What is this!?” he was wearing a look of anguish and Hermione noticed his fists were bloodied as if he’d been punching walls.

“We think it’s the tovarasi, Blaise!” said Hermione frantically.

Blaise looked at her with dawning comprehension.

“That means…?”

“Someone’s hurt or… I don’t know. We have to go to Hogwarts, that’s where the rest of them are.” said Hermione, trying to control her breathing. “Come on!”

The three of them turned as one and pounded up the street towards the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione did not wait for the boys to catch their breath; the moment she was inside the boundaries of the courtyard, she grabbed them both by the arm and turned them into darkness.

They materialised on the platform of Hogsmeade station, in snow that reached up to their knees. Blaise and Malfoy did not miss a beat, immediately beginning to sprint up to the castle, making use of the snowless road, their cloaks flying out behind them like wings. Hermione was close behind.

The three of them burst into the entrance hall and without conscious thought, ran up to the only place that made sense. None of them were surprised to hear pounding footsteps join them as they converged on the hallway outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Hermione stared around at the tovarasi. Padma, Eli, Ginny, Juliet, Susan and Luna all looking equally as frantic as Hermione, Blaise and Malfoy.

“Isobel!” Hermione gasped. The Slytherin was the only one missing. Abruptly, half the despair she was feeling became her own. Her hand covered her mouth as she began to cry. The rest of the group immediately made to charge down towards the dungeons where the Slytherin dormitories could be found. “Wait!” she shouted. They stopped, staring at her like she was mad.

“Juliet and Ginny, go get the headmistress. Luna and Susan, wake Teodora. Blaise and Eli, go and search for any teacher you can find patrolling the corridors. Padma and Draco, come with me.”

They stared at her, as if waiting for further orders, “GO!” she bellowed.

The tovarasi split up and tore off in separate directions. Hermione sprinted down towards the dungeons, Malfoy and Padma in tow.

They did not meet anyone on the way and their footsteps resonated off the stone walls. The air got colder as they descended into the depths of the castle. Malfoy took the lead and Hermione followed him gratefully. She had no idea where the Slytherin dormitories lay.

“Here!” he yelled, skidding to a halt in front of a stretch of blank stone wall. He hissed a password Hermione could not make out and the wall unfolded into itself, revealing a stone passageway. The three of them hurtled down this until it widened into the Slytherin common room, dark and foreboding.

At the far end of the room was another passageway and Hermione followed Malfoy as he dodged between low backed dark green and black sofas and regally carven tables. Lining the passageway were fourteen doors, parallel to each other. Malfoy led them to the very end of the hallway.

“It’s that one.” puffed Malfoy. “I can’t go through it.”

Hermione yanked open the door he was pointing at. Inside the room were three beds. One was empty.

Hermione ignored the other two girls in the room, who began to stir and sit up, staring at the intruder, bleary eyed. She wheeled out into the passageway.

“She’s not here.” she gasped to her companions.

“Fuck!” Padma swore.

“Where is she?!” Hermione hissed to herself.

“Let’s go back to the Defence classroom, see if anyone else has found her.” said Malfoy.

The three of them ran back through the common room and down the passageway leading to the stone door. They traced their path back up to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom to find, upon their arrival, that the door was open.

Inside, the rest of the tovarasi were gathered with Teodora, Professor Slughorn and Professor McGonagall who was wearing a tartan house coat.

“Was she there?” asked Juliet frantically.

Hermione shook her head.

“Rahat!” Teodora hissed.

The room hung in silence, the group looking around at each other frantically.

“We have to think!” cried Luna, her hands in her hair. “Where else could she be!?”

“Her family own a manor.” said Professor McGonagall, her brow furrowed in concentration.

“Wasn’t it seized by the Ministry?” asked Blaise.

“I don’t know.” she responded helplessly.

“Where is it?” asked Ginny.

“Gloucestershire I believe.” said Professor Slughorn huskily, his wide, frightened eyes sweeping the room.

“Well, we’ll go there!” cried Padma, “What’s the address?”

Hermione began to feel very cold. She pulled her cloak around her tightly, and breathed into her cupped hands. There was no fire in the classroom for her to stand by so she pulled out her wand to cast a warming charm. Before she could, her feet suddenly stung and ached as the freezing cold seemed to converge in her toes. She frowned at her boots. The cold travelled up her legs slowly, despite her long socks and jeans. She rubbed her arms in an attempt to encourage circulation. Her teeth began to chatter as the cold hit her arse and stomach. Every inch of her was shaking. It hit her chest and took her breath away completely. She opened her mouth mutely. She couldn’t breathe.

She looked up, about to ask for help, only to notice that every other member of the tovarasi was in the same position. Hands at their throats, coats pulled tightly around them.

The three teachers appeared unaffected.

“What is this?!” choked Malfoy.

“I can’t feel my legs.” whispered Luna.

“Why is it so c-c-cold?” asked Juliet, wide eyed with panic.

Hermione looked down at her hands. Red and bleeding crescent marks covered her palms where her nails had dug into them. Her skin was mottled blue and purple as if it was submerged in cold water.

Cold water.

She gasped.

“The lake!” she shouted. The heads around her shot up to look at her.

“Oh no.” whispered Teodora.

Hermione turned on her heel and ran. She ran like she had never run in her life, as if Voldemort himself was grasping at the hem of her cloak. She was vaguely aware of the footsteps echoing behind her but she outstripped them.

Only she knew what had happened. Only she had been where her friend was now. Only she knew how it would end.

She couldn’t lose another one. Isobel may feel like she was of no more value to anyone, a dead death eater’s daughter, but she was valuable to Hermione. Hermione needed her.

And she’d never told her.

She reached the entrance hall and charged out into the snow. The cold soaked through her jeans but made no difference to her, she wasn’t feeling it anyway. The wind stung her face and howled in her ears along with her own heartbeat.

It was a keening wail accompanying the drums of war.

She pushed on, panting with the effort of dragging her legs through the snow. It hurt to breathe. She couldn’t stop even if she’d wanted to. Isobel was there somewhere, and Hermione would find her. No matter what she had to do.

The moon bathed the snow in blue and the lake shone in front of her like a diamond in the night as she approached its bank. Her eyes caught sight of a darker patch about a hundred metres to her left. She ran towards it.

She saw that a portion of the frozen lake had been melted leaving a gap of dark black water around the size of a large room.

In the middle of it lay Isobel. Naked except for her underwear, blue with cold and very still, floating face up with her eyes closed. The light of the moon blurred the flaws of her skin and Hermione almost choked with the poetic beauty of the scene.

She began tearing off her clothes, piece by piece. She heard ripping sounds as she cast them away from her body in an animalistic rage. A person skidded to a halt beside her and screamed. She ignored them.

She kept her eyes locked on Isobel and stepped into the black, bottomless water, clad in nothing but her bra and underwear.

She felt like she was going to die. The cold bit into her like knives, tearing at her skin. She waded in up to her waste. No one stopped her.

The bank was silent.

Hermione dived.

Every part of her, mind, body and spirit screamed in agony. She’d never felt cold like this before. She’d never felt despair like this before.

She sobbed uncontrollably as breath was torn from her body.

She wouldn’t give into it. She’d get to Isobel.

Hermione surged through the water in an awkward breast stroke, her arms reaching out to touch her friend. Her hand closed around Isobel’s naked upper arm.

She wanted to let go immediately. Her stomach turned and she screamed, forcing her hand to stay connected with the girl’s skin. It was cold and hard, like a wax model. Hermione didn’t want to touch it. She wanted to be as far away from it as humanly possibly, far away from the feeling. She wanted it wiped from her memory. She wanted Isobel’s softness back, her warmth. But there was none.

Hermione bit her tongue hard and looped her arm around Isobel’s torso, the cold girl’s skin sliding slimily over her own. Hermione’s hands caught in Isobel’s long blonde hair as she kicked them back towards the bank, the rest of the tovarasi black silhouettes in the night.

Her feet found the bottom and she shifted Isobel to pull her up against her chest.

Hermione stopped. All thought was gone from her mind; there was no feeling, no reaction, only a horrific screaming that echoed faintly through the empty cavity where her psyche once was.

This was not Isobel, it wasn’t her best friend. It was a body. There was no life left in it.

Hermione held the dead girl in her arms, their naked skin intermingling under the water. Toe to toe, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. Hermione couldn’t move, couldn’t let her go. She could only stare into Isobel’s blank, lifeless face.

There was no heartbeat against her breast, no pulse under her hands.

Distantly, Hermione heard splashing. Isobel was wrenched from her arms but she continued to stare at the empty space, at her blue, mottled hands under the dark water.

“Hermione!” someone was calling her, begging her, “Hermione please! Come out of the water!!”

Hermione made her legs move. The water level dropped as she walked slowly towards the bank. When it reached her lower thighs, she dropped to her knees with a splash, unable to make her limbs work any longer. The cold of the water was numbing now, she almost felt warm, she was sleepy.

She could sleep, like Isobel slept. She could turn around and dive, swim out under the ice where no one would get to her and fall away surrounded by the cold, lifeless black.

Arms that were so hot they almost burned her skin clamped around her waist and dragged her to her feet. She made no effort to try and stand. For the second time in his life, Draco slipped one arm behind her knees and the other under her shoulder blades and pulled her up to cradle her against her chest.

She was vibrating so badly he could barely keep a hold of her. She did not make a sound as the night air struck her skin, stinging like acid. She felt as if her flesh must be falling from her bones in chunks, the pain was so intense.

Malfoy wrapped her tightly in her own cloak once they reached the shore. She looked up at him.

“Draco. She’s dead. I didn’t save her.” she rasped. “Her body… Empty…”

Hermione felt her eyes drifting closed. She was quite comfortable really, despite Malfoy’s jostling her. She could hear only his breathing, the beat of his heart and the beat of his footsteps and it all served to sooth her. This was a nice place to sleep, not in the lake. The lake where dead girls slept. She could fall away right here with the smell of Malfoy’s cologne in her nostrils and his hair tickling her face.

“Granger! Are you fucking stupid! Don’t go to sleep!” Malfoy snarled, slapping her cheek hard.

She opened her eyes to see Malfoy’s face above her, silhouetted against the sky. He looked so sad, so broken.

Had she been broken before? Had the war broken her? Oh no, the war was fun really, compared to the lake. In the end, they gotten what they’d fought for, they’d won. There was no victory in this. Isobel’s death was not noble or poetic. It was ugly and soul destroying. Fred, Remus, Tonks, they’d died for what they’d believed in. But not Isobel, she’d died for the world’s mistakes. And she’d be forgotten. There would be no monument or memorial. But Hermione would not forget her. She’d had something with Isobel, something tangible and real. She’d had something more than a sister, more than a friend, more than a comrade. She’d had a soul mate. And she’d given it away because she was too caught up in her own pain, her own life. She’d been too stupid to see Isobel’s slipping away.

Hermione would remember.

She hadn’t known broken until right then. That pristine moment as she lay on the bank of the lake, her skin blue and her mind shattered with the sounds of wailing and screaming all around her and Malfoy’s hands on her body, rubbing her numb limbs back to life.

He needn’t bother. There was nothing inside them anymore. The lake had sucked it all out, like a Dementor. She stared up at the sky. The stars. The moon.

Someone was saying something to her, there was chanting in her ears. But she didn’t hear it. She was already shutting down.

The chasm at the very bottom of her mind filled to the brim, pieces of herself cascading over the edge, into nothingness. She was gone.

And she knew, somewhere on the bank of this lake, the lake that lay next to her last true home, lay her dead best friend who’s skin felt like cold, raw meat. The blood of which was still all over Hermione’s body. And always would be.

The quote at the beginning of this chapter is from Ani Difranco's song Sorry I Am
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Victim of the Fall