A Kaleidoscope Of Strange Beginnings

December 25th , Year 1



Mouth full of mud, pain tearing through my every limb, I force myself to stand back up. There is no place for weakness here, in this field of blood. And then, with a miserable sob, I collapse again.



Funny, the things you think of when you think you’re dying.


That you’re only Eighteen.


That you’ve never watched the sun creep in through an open window and fall on any skin but your own. Like, really watched.


That your mother will miss you terribly, but your father may not ever, ever be the same.



And so I stand, fall, stand, and fall, despite every instinct in me telling me to just lie down, give into rest, give up. They’ll make it on their own. Or they won’t. I’ve never been helpless, like I’ve never not had an answer, like I’ve never, ever, been in love.



My thoughts are a jumbled mess, yes. But also, I know I want to live. If only to see this field of blood as I once saw it months ago; thriving and untamed, reflected in a lake so black you could lose yourself in it and then it, right back in you. For a long time, I lay in that spot, pretending to know what it feels like to be dead. Breathing stilled, the rain washing me, and when another blast to my right covered me in things unspeakable, washing me again. My body would turn colder still, if that we’re even possible, and pretty soon, I’d be as unaware of Seamus Finnigan lying beside me as he is of me.



Harry and the others might come to say goodbye, but I have no delusions of grandeur. Within days, my name will be a marking on a vast stonewall amongst countless others. Tears for me will blend seamlessly in with the battle cries that haunt nightmares for years to come. It won’t be about me, no matter how it has defined my life. And such is war, the cruelty of it.



“Granger, get up” he growls. “Get the fuck up and keep moving.”


I gasp at the thought of it, the misery.


“No.” Nonononono, don’t make me do this. I can’t do this anymore.


“Harry’s coming, Granger,” he says, his voice softer now. “Don’t let him see you like this.” He’s pleading with me, now, and I think he’s lying. Harry isn’t coming. He can’t be. He can’t have gotten through this. No one could.



“Fuck you, Malfoy,” I wheeze indignantly. Fuck him for pulling that card, now, of all times. Fuck him to hell. And then his hands are pulling me up without remorse.


“No, you don’t, you little twit. You haven’t shown me up all these years to die on me now. How am I ever supposed to get my vengeance on you, huh?”



It occurs to me that Malfoy sounds slightly hysterical, and should really consider lying down himself. His touch is jolting, however. It reminds me that there is still life in some things. “Get off of me, you prat,” I gasp.



God, just look at the state of this place.


Fred Weasley, dear god, for all that he knows this is a field of fucking daisies. I know I will never, ever get the sight of his eyes, empty of life, out of my mind. But also, I see for the first time how so full of life they were. I can still hear so many people fighting for a cause that has always seemed hopeless and haunting.



The war, I now know, crept up far too slowly for us to ever be prepared. Eight years. Eight bloody years to prepare for the fight of your life. And if it had just been a day, I think we'd have been luckier for it. Because now, it is misery, it is every promise ever made to you exposed as betrayal all at once. It is complete and utter injustice that we have waited this long to give up, a pathetic heap of broken and bloodied bone crying into the mud. I cry harder. Harry finds me, and Malfoy, moments later, and tells me it isn’t over.



“He got away,” he says to no one in particular, his eyes a foggy admission to insanity. He stares into the sky, unable to look any longer at the bodies crumpled in every direction.


“For nothing,” he whispers. “For nothing.” I cry into Malfoy’s shirt and reluctantly, he allows me.



“Everything happens for a reason,” he states blandly.

Harry snorts, and I cry harder.




September 19th, Year 1



“What if he isn’t a traitor? What then?” Harry stares me down, accusation and warning in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, diverting my gaze. It unnerves me how hard his eyes have become. “Then we use his information. We use him, pride be damned.”


“And then?”


“And then we ask for an explanation.”


“…Because?”


“Because no one here gives a fuck about redemption right now,” I say coldly.



He nods approvingly, indicating I have answered correctly, for once. There isn’t room for empathy here. For rationality and practicality and all things Hermione Granger.

“He isn’t a traitor,” Pansy states flatly.

Harry snorts. “Isn’t he?”

Pansy, a hard girl with a hard heart, as I’ve come to know her, never seems intimidated by Harry.
“No, he isn’t,” she says bitingly. “And don’t you give me that 'being loyal to something you don’t believe in is worse than being loyal to nothing at all' bullshit, Harry Potter. You have no idea what it’s like,” she hisses.

I clear my throat, to remind the two they’re not alone, lest they break into yet another three-hour debate about the fine points of loyalty. I, of course, am completely ignored.



“That’s precisely what I’m going to say! Malfoy is a fucking coward for this --this bloody offer,” he gestures wildly at the tattered parchment lying on the table before him. “Just as much as he is a coward for not coming forth ages ago, when the rest off you did.”



Harry is unusually on edge today. Sensing this, Pansy backs off, just a bit.


“Draco had it worse than most of us. Lucius.…” I can see her shudder. Suddenly, the room feels too stifled. Too cold. I can’t think about what Malfoy has been through. Or anyone else for the matter. There is just no room for empathy here.



I stand, hurrying to leave, when both Pansy and Harry remember my presence.


“Sit.” Harry demands.


“Don’t speak to her that way!”


“Fuck off Parkinson, she’s my best friend.”


“Bloody fantastic way of showing it,” she says bitterly, flipping her hair and casting a judgmental stare in my direction when I sit.




March 30th, Year 2



The sun in his hair looks competitive. Envious, almost. It drifts in a solemn beam and floats along the thick curl of lashes resting on his cheek, blocking from me the only view I’d climb to see these days.



Just before he left last night, he kissed my lips for the first time.


“I’ll be back. Don’t do anything stupid,” he’d said hurriedly. I think several seconds passed before he’d realized what he’d just done. It was hours before it hit me.



And when he’d returned this morning, I’d sat up instantly, knowing he was hurt by the way he stumbled through the door, looking harassed by me instantaneously.


“Relax, Granger, just a few bruises.”


"...Is Harry-"


"-He's fine."



Watching from across the dim room, as he sleeps from the potion I’d practically had to force him to take, in the room you’d swear he was, at this moment, stealing the light from, I unconsciously lick my lips, again and again, and try to taste him there.



It was chaste, at best. It had set my skin on fire.


“Go to hell,” I’d said back.



He makes me think of ethics, of philosophy. The way that one should live, as opposed to the way they do. What may exist and what cannot, does not, will not, and might insist upon it. He makes me think of history. I once heard him say, “I’m all history. It’s what makes me unique.”




June 14th Year 2



Pansy and Harry spend three days and two nights locked in a bedroom away from the world. When they emerge, there is something that looks oddly like hope in them, but they do not touch, nor speak, in the presence of anyone else for days and days.






October 15th, year 1



“Get down, Ron!” I scream, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t. Why doesn’t he?


The spell hits him square in the chest. He’s still looking at me, who has fallen onto my knees just in time to miss the spell directed at me. And then he falls, face first, into dirt. This sudden development would be enough to send me straight into shock, if there were time. The following two hours are a series of blurs, direction thrown at me from Malfoy, and a terrifying realization that I am in the middle of a god damn war that will never go away.



We were going to meet him. To discuss terms. Death Eaters attack us two minutes in. A fucking flock of them. Malfoy pushes me out of the way just in time, but at the expense of Ron. I don’t know how to thank him for this, and so I don’t.




September 23rd, Year 2



“I hate you so much!” I scream, anger literally making me tremble. I’m so close to tears I’m gasping for air just to keep them in check. I know I’m nearly hysterical, but the stress level has been at its breaking point and I can’t help but blame him.


“Since when does who I fuck have anything to do with you, Granger?” he seethes, eyes flashing with challenge.

“Bastard,” I sob. You knew that Harry—and she—this has nothing to do with me!” I scream indignantly. He is too angry to pull off the eye roll he attempts. It becomes more of an infuriated sneer of exasperation. Maybe even a little disgust. Because I did this. I asked for this.



“Oh, really? And you’re trembling right now.” He invades my space completely, grabbing my hand and yanking me toward him until I’m falling into his chest. “Fucking trembling, on Harry’s behalf?”



“Fuck you, Malfoy!” I scream, shoving at him frantically, but then he is breathing softly into my neck, and he’s trembling too. I whimper, trying my damndest to pull away from him despite my weakened resolve.



“But you’ve already done that, haven’t you?” He whispers bitterly, licking slow circles over my frantic pulse and not letting me go. I flinch, scolded by the obvious pain in his voice. He has expressed no emotion, since … since I told him. That I didn’t return his feelings. Yes. I did that. I can’t deny it now.



“Oh, pardon me for saying it out loud, wouldn’t want anyone to hear,” he says, mistaking my tension for fear of being overheard. “So that’s why you did this, is it? To get back at me for ending things?”

I hiss accusingly.



Still keeping a firm grasp on me, he growls. “I did it because I wanted to. And I owe you nothing.” He spits slightly on me as he speaks, he’s so close, and I can smell the coffee and whiskey he’s been drinking since morning. Since every morning, lately. “I owe you nothing, and I will do what I want, who I want, when I want.”



“Is that so?” I hiss back, completely enraged and out of control. I want to claw into his skin, pull out his hair, bite, scratch—

“Yes, that’s right. For example,” he sneers, and then he pushes me up against the oven behind me so hard a pan falls to the floor and clatters noisily. His lips are searing hot when they crash into mine, and I claw at him, desperately seeking entrance into his mouth, but he keeps his lips firmly locked, wanting me to take it from him.



I clutch at his white shirt frantically, the one with the muggle logo for waffles I gave him. I lift my leg and wrap it around his, attempting to pull him closer to the center, where I feel so, so much heat. His hand fumbles behind me for purchase, and then his other grips me under my ass, grinding into me with brutal force.

“Bastard,” I whimper into his pursed lips, and then moan, wantonly, and it seems to be enough to crush his resolve. When his tongue meets mine, it’s a strangled sob that escapes my lips.



“I was afraid.”



He takes me there, against the stove, for the entire world to see, and if anyone walked in I didn’t care. If the world had stopped spinning on it’s axis, I did not care.



All that I can see, taste, touch, feel, is him, thrusting in and out of me with his uniquely mad abandon, muttering my name over and over, asking me why, why I was doing this to him, fucking bitch, god, I love you.



He doesn’t even have the wits about him to look as shocked as he must feel when I tell him, that I, too, love him. Over and over and over. When he comes, it’s like an explosion. I feel him shudder, and with a feral cry, I come around him the very moment he explodes his thick white seed deep inside of me. We’re both breathing heavily, hot, and sticky, into one another’s necks.



“She didn’t feel like you,” he whimpers, nearly crying from the heat of it. “Never-- no one,” he pants, trying desperately to express something, anything.

“I know,” I whisper softly, stroking his hair as he slips out of me. “I know.”




December 25th Year 3



The final battle finally came three years after the day that Hogwarts was destroyed and Draco Malfoy took me into his home. Me and Harry and the entire Order, after his father had killed his mother, and was then, in turn, killed by Draco Malfoy. Who happened to be clever enough not to give the bastard time to change his will. Husband and wife died thirty seconds apart.



Later Draco told me he had wanted to make sure his father never had a chance to feel guilt. Only much later than this did I discover what a punishment this must have seemed like to him; for at times, guilt was all that kept Draco going. And in the end, he came to the light side for vengeance, but he says he found a lot more.



“Granger, keep going.”


"No, Draco, I won’t leave you!”


“You have to, dammit! I can’t go on anymore!”



I sob, broken and bruised but not half as bad as him. In fact, in all the battles I have seen, of all the wounded soldiers I have ever witnessed walk away, I have never seen anyone look as horrible as Draco Malfoy looks right now. And still be living.



“Baby, please don’t make me do this,” I say brokenly, falling to my knees beside him. “I can’t j-just leave you!”


“Well you can’t stay, and I’m holding on for dear life here, woman, trying to convince you of that fact!”



He lets out a shaky breath and then collapses forward, his hands flying forward to catch himself just in time, and coughs blood all over the ground. Which, of course, is covered in white snow. God, how have I come to love him so much that watching this might kill me? Might rip my heart right out from my chest and devour it? Neither of us have our wands anymore. They were taken hours ago, and only the small amount of wandless magic he is capable of has kept me –us, alive.



It’s strange, the things you think of when you think the man you love is dying.


The great white clock that towers over Malfoy Manor chimes twelve O’clock, We are in the woods that surround the vast mansion, which by now, surely, is shattered to bits. Just like Hogwarts. This war has taken every beautiful thing from the world, I think. And now it wants him. But I won’t have it.



“Draco, baby, it’s Christmas,” I say absently, stroking his hair as tears run freely down my face. Draco chuckles and then winces, in a pain that I can’t imagine.


“Merry Christmas,” he says.


I nod, somberly. “Merry Christmas.”


“I love you, Hermione,” he says weakly. And then lays down, in a painfully slow motion, as if he’s just too tired to be bothered with the natural speed of things. I nearly choke on a hiccup and begin sobbing all over again.



“No,” I say firmly, pulling him to me, trying like hell to make him sit up. “No, dammit. Malfoy! Don’t do that!”


“Granger, listen to me!”

I’m too hysterical to listen. Can’t he see that?


“Listen! Harry needs you. Pansy needs you. Tonks, and Molly, and Ginny, they all need you. This –I – it can’t be helped! It’s … it’s just my time.” He coughs harshly again, and only because of this do I relent from pulling at him.



I refuse to hear it. Why is he saying these things? Why is he doing this to me?


“No, damn you! You made me love you, you bastard! You can’t j-just, just leave me now!” I bury my face in his neck, and even now, past the dirt and the blood I can smell his soap, his skin, his sweet scented sweat. Him.



“Hermione, I--”


“No, dammit!” I exclaim, raising my head to look him squarely in the eye with a stern expression I’m not quite sure I’m pulling off. “It’s not your time until it’s my time, ok? Got that?” I don’t mean to sound so angry, because it isn’t his fault. He’s just confused, that’s all. Loss of blood. But of course he isn’t dying.



Draco gasps for air suddenly, and I start to see how pale he is … how very close to the color of snow his complexion is in this light.


When he catches his breath, he looks paler still as if he’s fading … literally, fading.



“Don’t let it be this way Granger,” he says sternly, in his way of letting me know I am being too god damn proud. Too foolish. And that’s all it takes. Because he’s dying.



Knowing, through the unusually strong emotional connection the two of us have, the one that has always scared the hell out of me, that I’ve come to terms with it, he sighs in relief. “You’re the strongest person I know, Granger. I bet you’ll be just fine.”



He smiles lazily, and reaches up to pull a loose curl. It bounces back, and his eyes lazily watch its progress.


“I’ve always loved your hair.”



And then, his eyes drift shut. The world is completely still. Too still.



“Draco…?”


I sit for a long time, watching his beauty. I was wrong. Not even death can steal it away. The sun rises eventually, lighting the sky an impossibly gray-blue, and in this it seems to rise for him alone. Only when I discover I haven’t heard a sound for hours, that somewhere in my grieving, the night had become silent, the battle had worn itself out, do I kiss him gently, whisper my goodbye, and rise to walk toward my fate.



When I arrive, I see only Harry. He stands in the middle of a field, his wand hung loosely at his side, staring out into the sky with the hardest, blankest expression I have ever seen. But his eyes are soft when he sees me, and he doesn’t look the least bit surprised.



“I didn’t think they could take you from me,” He says warmly, though his voice is hoarse and cracks.

“Through thick and thin,” I whisper, echoing old sentiments from days forgotten. We’re the only two people standing, for miles around.



“He’s gone," Harry says. "They’re all gone."


I nod. I expected as much. Needing to touch him, I walk behind him and wrap my arms tightly around his waist. At first he stiffens, but then, he eases into me.


“Was it worth it all?” I whisper into his back. He sighs.


“No. But that’s what it cost.”



The air is silent but for the birds that have come out of hiding since the cries and escaped magic has died down.


“Pansy?” I ask gently.


“Gone,” he says. “Draco?”


“Gone.”


The great Loves of our lives. And who would have thought.



He nods slowly, digesting the news, and then his eyes linger briefly on the blood all over my hands before taking them gently in his own and finding solace in the empty sky once more.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Harry says flatly. The sun peaks over the treetops just at that moment, and the blood and destruction take a backseat to the blinding beauty of a red sun making its slow progress across an endless sky.



Somehow, I think I might have heard someone say this before. And though I can’t remember who in that moment, I know that I agree.