Shades

The beating of her heart was all Hermione heard as she stood across the burning stretch of the battlefield. The stench of death was riding high in the air as she looked around; her eyes searching for the one face she feared would be among the dead.

No, no, no, her heart begged. Please.

The faces of many stuck in her mind as she walked past the burning piles of flesh, the smell of charred bone seeping deep into her skin, to where she feared she could never wipe it away. Her soul would never be clean again because the black, putrid stains marked her for life.

Marked her as his.

She would always belong to him; her heart called his name in so many different expressions of love that it knocked the wind from her lungs and the sense from her mind. She knew her feelings for him were illogical, she knew the idea of them was ridiculous, but still, she allowed herself to dream.

A dream of days gone by…

For all she could do was dream, for the reality of the situation was sometimes too harsh for her to grasp. Black tendrils of doubt filled her mind when she thought of him, of them. She could grasp the harsh, undeniable truth of the matter with both hands, but she could not let the cold, hard facts into her mind.

For she was of the light, and he belonged to the dark.

The dark, she noted, was made up of people who feared they had no choice. The dark was easier to hide within, easier to escape in. The dark cloaked the worst of sins, absolved the soul of its pain. The dark, she realized, was where she ran to when she needed to escape.

The darkest angel, betrayed by the lightness of his features.

Absolution, she feared would come to pass. She almost danced around the piles of ash, the lifeless comrades she’d once thought of as family littered like trash upon the once plush, green grass. Hermione would not seek out their forgiveness, for if she had him, she would need no one.

She heard the desperate calling of her name before her body caught on; it seemed to sway as she swung around like a compass finding its home in the north. The flippancy of her movement nearly made her dizzy as her feet moved against her will toward the voice.

His voice.

It was like time had frozen and detrimental eons ticked by as they fought to meet each other in the middle. Invisible hands grabbed at her legs, slowing her down. The wind tangled in her hair, whipping it round her face, obstructing her view and she fought it desperately to make it to the sound of her future.

The sound of home.

Lips met, almost furiously in their passion. Hands touched everything they could; touch was their salvation. He dove into her soul and kissed every part of it he could. He tasted her, recalled her scent like it hadn’t been hours since he’d touched her last. His fingers memorized the texture of her rat’s tail hair, her soft, supple skin.

She breathed him in, inhaling and exhaling on cue. Every breath, every swipe of her tongue across his lips was laced with need and longing. Finally, they were tangled together, where no one could cut away at the threads that held them together.

Red and green, black and white; light meeting dark, until all that was left was grey matter. Shades of love, reflected in a mirror that held no opinion of good or bad. No view on death or destruction, or the acknowledgement of pain.

Green and red, the lion and the serpent. Good versus evil, Light versus dark. The past would always be defined in shades of black and white, for one stood for one and the other for the other.

But to them, it didn’t matter any longer; they were who they were, and who they would always be: Draco Lucius Malfoy and Hermione Jane Granger.