Whiskey Lullaby

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the song "Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss nor do I make money by putting it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ys89rgn4b0


Tissue Alert.


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She put him out,
Like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette.

“Draco, we can’t do this anymore,” Hermione said, drawing circles on his naked chest and shaking Draco of his reverie.

“What?” he snarled, anger billowing up inside him like an evil cloud.

“You knew when this started that it couldn’t go anywhere. We can’t be seen with each other. It would ruin your reputation, it would ruin my chance at a career.”

He found it hard to breathe and he shoved her hand away from him, sitting up and dangling his legs off the edge of the bed, the cold floor beckoning. He felt the bed shift as she drew nearer to him, wrapped her smooth arms around him.

“Don’t be mad. We had a good time. We graduate tomorrow and we’ll go our separate ways. We always said it would be like this.”

Draco knew what they had promised each other in the beginning as he’d taken her against a shelf in the Restricted Section of the library. No commitments, no feelings and no telling. He’d kept quiet, at first from shame of craving a Mudblood, and then because he’d wanted her selfishly to himself. No one knew, no one suspected. She was his own enigma, his own angel. She was there when he needed her and he was there when she wanted him. It wasn’t her fault that he’d fallen so desperately in love with her that he couldn’t bear the thought of being without her. But she was right. In the castle it was easy to carry on a secret relationship, but in the real world it would be hard to keep hidden. She could do so much; he couldn’t rob her of that because of his own selfish needs.

“You’re right, Granger. It was fun, but this is the end. Don’t bother writing.”

She broke his heart.
He spent his whole life tryin' to forget.

After that night Draco had tried to forget her, tried to erase the image of her face from his mind, tried to move on. He fucked other women, filled his schedule with parties and dinners, earned his way into an Auror program and trained hard. When he wasn’t working he was training, running, lifting weights. When he wasn’t doing that, he was in a bar, dousing himself in Firewhiskey.

We watched him drink his pain away,
A little at a time,

For seven years he spent his nights at the bar, picking up women or drinking himself into a stupor. He would see her then, try to touch her but she always faded away just before he could. He tortured himself by watching her at the Ministry, prancing about with Percy Weasley as he trained her to become the Minister’s secretary. She would catch him looking at times and spare him that little smile she’d always saved just for him right after he’d made her come and she would call his name into the night.

Potter noticed. He wondered why Draco didn’t ask her out. Draco claimed ignorance. But Potter followed him to the bars, dragged him out on more than one occasion and even best the living shit out of him once. Draco didn’t care. His life was a joke, a lie. He ate, slept, drank and worked with her on his mind. He was slowly going mad.

But he never could get drunk enough,
To get her off his mind.

She was there, all the time. He would wake with tears in his eyes as he thought of the one true thing that had gotten away. She had gotten away. He’d let her walk out the door and he wouldn’t pursue her because this was what she wanted. He would kill himself to give her what she needed. He wasn’t it. So he would go on living, wishing he had her and torturing himself with thoughts of what could have been.

Until the night…

The gala was as usual, loud, bawdy, full of rich witches and wizards who had more money than they knew what to do with and the Ministry who was willing to accommodate them because of it. She was there, in a gold silk gown, perfect, and on the arm of that Weasel prick. Shoving his glasses on his head, the prat twirled her around on the dance floor. She locked eyes with Draco for a moment and his heart stopped. She was so achingly beautiful it hurt to look at her. Then her eyes moved to Percy’s and Draco watched in horror as she leaned up and kissed the gangly man full on the lips. Draco’s champagne flute crashed to his feet, spraying the ground and his expensive leather shoes with glass. Muted voices of people asked if he was alright, a waiter quickly flicked his wrist and cleaned up the mess but Draco noticed none of it. He moved towards the couple whose lips were still attached, his heart left behind with the slivers of glass on the floor. Someone grabbed his arm, Potter, pulling him back towards the balcony, but he didn’t want any of it. He had always hoped she would come back. But there she was, in the arms of another man. It was over, there was nothing more. He wrenched out of Potter’s grasp and aparated back to his loft.

He put that bottle to his head,
And pulled the trigger.
And finally drank away her memory.

Draco dropped his cuff links into a little metal dish that sat on his dresser. He tugged his tie loose, unbuttoned the collar. Sliding the jacket off his shoulders, he hung it behind the door. Sitting on the edge of his bed he untied his Italian made shoes, laying them side by side at the edge of his bed. He looked up at the picture he had of Hermione, one he’d taken not long into their short lived affair. She was wearing his Oxford shirt, her hair loose, her dark eyes full of secrets as she’d grinned up saucily at him. Rising, he went to his cherry wood desk and pulled out an ink well, a quill and parchment. He sat and wrote the words slowly, methodically. Then he sanded it, looked up to the sky. The bright moon was dull, pointless, mocking. She’d loved the moon. She’d told him so and had been so stupidly happy when he’d taken her up to the astronomy tower to make love to her on their clothes. Clutching the parchment, he moved to the cabinet and drew out that amber liquid. Ogden’s Old, his only friend. He drank greedily, relishing in the smooth texture, the fluid grace of bliss that would soon be upon him. Watching her smile nervously from the picture, he drank to his seventeen-year-old self who had had everything and never known it. He drank to lost dreams and lonely nights. Finally, he drank to the end.

Life is short, but this time it was bigger,
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees.

Settling himself in the middle of his plush bed, he lazily stroked his wand. The parchment was clutched in his hand. His mind swirled with the liquor, and his broken heart throbbed painfully in his chest. Tears leaked from his eyes. He’d finally had enough. He couldn’t do it anymore. She wasn’t his, never would be. He couldn’t go on without her.

So he raised the wand to his temple and closed his eyes, the last thing he saw before he muttered those words was Hermione’s dark eyes looking up at him.

We found him with his face down in the pillow,
With a note that said I'll love her till I die.

Harry stepped over the magical barrier that had been put in place around the scene to keep out the reporters. Bright sunlight filtered into the room through the curtains. He stepped up next to Rodriguez who was standing by the bed and looked down at the figure on the bed.

“Larsen was sent over when he didn’t show up for work, said the door was unlocked and everything. Nothing’s been moved, figured you’d want to take a look around first.”

His haunted blue eyes were wide, staring up at him, blaming him for not stepping in when he should have.

“Thank you, Rodriguez. I’ll take it from here,” Harry said. In his right hand lay his wand, in his left, a crumpled piece of parchment. When Harry leaned down to get it with his gloved hands he could smell the Firewhiskey on his friend’s breath. Closing his eyes against the guilt that assailed him, Harry tugged the parchment from Draco’s cold, lifeless fingers. He read the words and folded it, placing it into his pocket. No one would have to know.

“Hey, Chief, look at this over here,” Gibbons called, pointing to the mirror settled over a dresser. Harry stepped up beside the balding man, glad to be rid of the sickening sight. When he saw what the man pointed out, he almost wished he hadn’t left.

It was a picture of Hermione, young Hermione. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. And she was wearing what he presumed to be Draco’s shirt. Harry cursed, running his hands through his hair. It had been worse than he’d thought. He’d known that Draco had an unhealthy obsession with Hermione, but this…he’d had no clue. Why wouldn’t either of them have told him? They must have been together at Hogwarts. The scars had run far deeper than he could have guessed.

Harry told Hermione himself, had caught her as she’d collapsed, screaming in agony. Ginny had been startled by her obscene reaction, but Harry just held her. She’d been inconsolable but he’d tried. Pushing the parchment into her hand he’d taken his leave, dragging his red-haired wife with him.

And when we buried him beneath the willow,
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby.

Hermione didn’t go to the funeral. She couldn’t. She spent the week following his suicide locked in her apartment, refusing to venture out, clinging to the note, the last thing he’d written, the words emblazoned upon her memory. The tears had been numerous, her grieving heart devastated. Harry had stopped by several times, trying to get her to come out. He knew and now so did the rest of the world. The fact that he’d had a picture of her hanging up in his apartment had gotten out and now they knew, they all knew. She went to the willow tree, to his grave. The autumn wind whipped at her hair. She’d caressed the lonely tombstone and broken down. She’d killed him.

The rumors flew,
But nobody knew how much she blamed herself.

Hermione’s guilt ate at her, tearing her up inside. Ginny urged her to go to therapy, to get help. She refused. She didn’t want to be happy. She’d killed the only person she’d ever loved because she was too stubborn to tell him how she’d felt. She’d broken it off with him because of those feelings, knowing that they had agreed not to get attached. But she had. She loved him fiercely, enough to let him go and live his own life without the knowledge of her undying love. Little did she know that he felt the same. They’d spent all these years in pain and loneliness and now he was dead. The pain was more than she could bear.

For years and years,
She tried to hide the whiskey on her breath.

Hermione turned to the Firewhiskey, it was the only thing that dulled the knife edge of pain. At first, she was able to forget for a few hours. She’d wake up in the middle of a field and not know why or in some stranger’s bed she had no knowledge of ever meeting. She didn’t care. It helped pass the time. She worked diligently, but the drinking was grabbing hold and finally tumbling into the workplace. She couldn’t stop and the worst of it was, she didn’t want to. She couldn’t stand herself away from it.

Percy had tried to court her again, but she refused. She couldn’t get over him and being with Percy felt wrong. Percy had helped her kill him that night. She’d wanted to show Draco, once and for all, that she was over him. Instead, she’d killed him. She’d killed him

Ginny plead with her to stop. So did Lavender, Parvati, her mother. Mrs. Weasley even spoke to her, Harry, Ron. They all knew, but she couldn’t stop.

She couldn’t stop.

She finally drank her pain away,
A little at a time.

The bottle consumed her. She spent most nights in the taverns, weekends locked away at home. She caused bar fights, been kicked out on more than one occasion. She had to keep a list of ones she was no longer allowed to frequent. Five years had come and gone and still, it didn’t work. He was always there.

But she never could get drunk enough,
To get him off her mind.

His words consumed her. She heard them in her head every day, the malicious hell she put herself through. She deserved it, deserved the misery. It was her fault, after all.

The note was tucked in the corner of her bedroom mirror, a picture of him next to it. She’d taken it of him that same night he’d taken hers. He was lying on his stomach, as they’d found him that morning, his hands clasped under his face which was turned to her, grinning. His torso was bare and she knew from memory that the rest of him had been so. He’d never been embarrassed about being naked in front of her and had though it “cute” when she was. She’d gotten used to it though; ninety percent of their time spent together was thus. She remembered how his hands had travelled her body, how he had worshipped her, said she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She’d believed him then. But now, she was hideous, a monster. A murderer.

Until the night…

Another bar, another night, another glass. Ike knew what she liked, never asked. She just looked at him and he would slide it on over. But tonight was different. He leaned his arms against the counter.

“Mind if I asked ye’ a question?”

“Go ahead,” she slurred.

“Is this about that Draco kid? Is that why you’re always in here?”

Hermione’s heart stopped, her hand stilled.

“What?” she asked in a deadly, low tone.

“I don’ mean to be rude, miss, but yer in here every night. Ye’ drink yerself into a stupor and go on home. I know what they’ve all said. Is it true?”

She threw her glass at his face. It hit him and he yowled in pain as the cheap container shattered, slicing into his countenance. She watched the blood run and her heart sped in her chest. This was what she’d become.

“Get out ye’ wench! Get outta my bar! Don’ ye’ come crawlin’ back in here neither!”

Number fourteen. The fourteenth bar she’d been kicked out of. It was enough. She calmly stumbled from the premises, aparating in front of two Muggles. She landed on her arse in her cheap apartment, having lost her job as secretary to the Minister for her poor performance and attendance. She had been scraping enough by from a waitressing job down the street. It was a dump, like the rest of her life and she hated it just as much.

She put that bottle to her head,
And pulled the trigger.
And finally drank away his memory.

Hermione stumbled to the mirror and grabbed his picture. Her eyes filled with tears and she looked at herself. Thirty years old with the face of a fifty-year-old. Wrinkles marred her once pristine face, bags under her eyes fell to her hallow cheeks. Her dirty, oily hair clung to her head and her gangly body poked out of her baggy clothes in angles. She couldn’t see who she used to be, a war hero, the top of her class, the secret lover of the most wonderful man in the world. She’d thrown it all away.

Life is short but this time it was bigger,
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees.

Hermione fell onto the bed and curled into a ball, her body shaking with the sobs that wracked through her. She was so tired of living this way. No more. No more.

Reaching for her wand on the bedside table she cradled the picture to her chest. Closing her eyes, she said the spell that would finally take away the pain and bring her to her love.

We found her with her face down in the pillow,
Clinging to his picture for dear life.

Harry gripped the doorpost of the dirty apartment Hermione had spent the last year of her life in, terrified at what was beyond. Klinton squeezed his shoulder and urged him on. Harry fell to his knees next to her bed, tears slipping down his cheeks, blocking his vision of the glossy brown eyes that stared up at him from a tormented face. She didn’t look herself, but he knew it was her. Sobbing, he laid his head on her cold hand, her wand still clutched loosely in it. They’d all seen it coming, had watched her slowly rot in her own hell. They’d done all they could, but nothing had helped. Her grief had taken her.

They rolled her over for a better examination and there, tucked beneath her was her other hand, something white poking out from her loose grasp. Harry pulled it out and yelled in pain, throwing the picture from him. Draco’s face stared up at him from the mattress, the reason his friend had died. Harry was escorted from the room and taken back to his wife and children.

We laid her next to him beneath the willow,
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby.

Harry dropped his blood red rose on her gleaming casket as it was levitated into the dark hole. Ginny had taken the children back to the car a few minutes ago, escorted by Ron since she couldn’t stand upright anymore. Harry looked at the grave sitting next to her new one. Draco’s. They were finally together again. With one last goodbye, he turned and left. He’d given her the only thing he could.


Hermione sat up, glancing at the flowers around her. She looked towards the sky, the earth walls blocking her vision. Then she saw him. He grinned at her, his seventeen year old face smiling in every inch. She smiled back, happy. He reached down his hand and she took it. His palm was warm and soft, just as she’d remembered. He lifted her from the hole and they looked at the graves and laughed. She leaned against his chest as he held her. She heard the beating of his heart and sighed in relief.

“I love you. I’ve always loved you,” he rumbled, his hand stroking her hair.

“And I love you, Draco.”

He kissed her sweetly, slowly, Together, they walked into the light, leaving the cruel world behind.

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XOXO

RynStar15