Chapter Text
Cover art by Talitasami
Cover art by dar.a_art
Please read:
Hello! ☺️
Before you dive in, I'd like to give you a couple heads-up about this fanfiction so you can decide if it's the right fit for you.
Draco is portrayed as intensely possessive in this story, reaching a level that is undeniably toxic. While this dynamic works within the context of fiction (at least for me), it's important to recognize that it wouldn't be considered healthy in reality. Both Hermione and Draco are depicted as flawed characters, each grappling with their own trauma, and they find solace in one another.
This isn’t an enemies-to-lovers story. While they may dislike each other initially, they aren’t true enemies as they don’t harbor deep hatred. An important event early on shifts their dynamic, setting the stage for their relationship to grow.
If you think this suits your taste, I hope you enjoy it. Have fun reading, and if you can, please leave a comment to share your thoughts! 💗
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
Hermione
“Stupefy!”
Sweat clung to the small of her back, hot and sticky, her black shirt plastered to her skin under a denim jacket that did nothing but slow her down. She twisted, barely dodging the streak of light flashing past her. Green. So close, she felt the heat of it.
Hermione pivoted instantly, boots scraping against stone as she nearly lost her footing. “Depulso!”
Her lungs burned when she tried to draw in air, her chest heaving with the effort. Every breath felt too shallow, too empty, her heart pounding against her ribs like a drumbeat of panic. There wasn’t a second to stop. To think. Her mind raced, and her voice strained as she shouted spell after spell—defensive, offensive—emptying her vast armoury of magic in a matter of minutes.
But no matter how many spells she cast, no matter how fast she moved, it never seemed like enough.
Not against enemies who hurled unforgivables with the same ease one casts a simple stinging hex. Spells so dark required intent, killing intent, and they had it in abundance. Their magic thrummed with the singular purpose of destruction, while the Order fought as if rules still mattered, clinging to their ideals and to the fragile hope that every life was worth saving.
They disarmed when they should have struck. They shielded when they should have attacked.
They hesitated when their enemies did not.
And it showed.
For every Death Eater who fell, twice as many of their own lay crumpled in the dirt, their wands slipping from lifeless hands.
It wasn’t fair.
But fairness didn’t matter here.
She knew that.
It feels so lonely to know it.
“Aghrr!” A shot of magic slashed across her arm, tearing through her skin and drawing a crimson line of blood. The wound throbbed, but she barely felt it. It was nothing. Nothing compared to the rest. The ache in her bones from hours of fighting, the exhaustion burning at every inch of her, the faces she’d seen fall, one after another, until her mind was nothing but a jumble of screams and curses.
She raised her wand with a hand that trembled, not from pain, but from fury. Fury fed by everything: the hopelessness, the fear, the constant feeling that they were losing ground no matter how hard they fought. It surged through her, hot and blinding, mingling with the bitterness that had been drowning her from the inside out.
And suddenly, the spell was on her lips, slipping out faster than reason could catch it.
“AVADA K—”
The sound broke abruptly, her voice dying in her throat as shock tore through her senses, the feel of dark magic flooding her body—the darkest kind. She’d expected it to taste like poison, like death.
But it tasted like…life.
And the sheer wrongness of it, of the way it filled her with warmth instead of cold, jolted her back into herself enough that she wrenched the unfinished spell away, forcing her wand to shift into the arc of a different spell.
“—Confringo!”
The blasting curse became a burst of fiery light that hit the Death Eater squarely in the chest, the force sending them flying backward until their body slammed to the ground.
Smoke and flames licked at their robes as they lay there, motionless.
Down.
But alive.
Her wand arm fell, her grip slackening dangerously as her stomach lurched.
Did anyone see?
Had anyone heard her almost—
She spun, her gaze darting across the courtyard. Chaos blurred around her, blending into something so overwhelming and dizzying she had to adjust her feet to keep her balance.
But no one was looking. No one had seen.
They were too busy fighting. Dying.
Harry wasn’t even there. He hadn’t been for some time.
Harry.
Her friend, who, in the midst of this unending nightmare, after all the pain life had dealt him, still clung to hope. Still believed that good could triumph simply because it should.
Why couldn’t she? When had hope abandoned her? Or had she abandoned it?
Another flash of green lit up the air, and a body hit the ground. Was it someone she’d spoken to that morning? Was it a professor? A classmate? A friend?
The questions cost her.
A spell slammed into her chest, knocking the air from her lungs.
It wasn’t green, she wasn’t dying, but the pain that followed was so familiarily visceral, she wished she were. Hermione screamed while agony shredded through her, dragging her mind backwards in time. Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix leaning close, her breath hot against her ear. A blade cutting into her arm. Blood, pain, fire, too much to endure, too much to escape.
She felt herself falling, the ground tilting beneath her.
Then, suddenly, it stopped.
Her head snapped up, her chest rising and falling in bursts as her senses rushed back. She couldn’t tell who’d saved her, just as she hadn’t seen who’d struck her in the first place.
She’d been foolish.
Distractions were deadly in this place. She was lucky to be alive.
Lucky?
Hermione straightened, blinking back tears that threatened to distort her vision as her eyes darted around the battlefield once more, searching for other threats, when something stole all the air from her lungs again.
Ginny.
She was a few paces ahead, unaware of the Death Eater behind her, who had his wand raised and the deadly green glow of Avada Kedavra already forming. No, no, no, no.
“Ginny!” The scream tore from her throat, panicked and loud, but it was lost among other screams. Each one just as desperate, just as scared.
Her mind raced, forcing a solution, and without fully letting the idea form, Hermione pointed her wand at the body of a fallen fighter. The gaping wound in his chest was so horrific it left no doubt he was dead. Irreversibly so. With a wave of her wand, the corpse jerked upright, landing between Ginny and the oncoming curse just as the flash of green light erupted, striking it instead.
Ginny finally turned as the body crumpled again, no more lifeless than before.
Hermione didn’t dare look at the face. She couldn’t. Her stomach revolted at the thought, twisting with a sickening guilt she had no time to process. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Ginny didn’t look either.
Instead, she disarmed the Death Eater quickly, their wand hitting the ground, broken and useless.
For a moment, Hermione and Ginny’s eyes met. The other girl’s chest rose and fell with laboured breaths, blood dulling to a rust-like hue in her matted red hair, her gaze filled with something neither of them could afford to name.
Hermione gave a quick, firm nod, willing every unsaid word into that small gesture.
Please don’t die.
Ginny nodded back, the understanding passing silently between them.
And then the moment was gone.
They both turned back to the fight, their wands raised. There was no time to stop. No time to linger on the horror of what they were being forced to do.
Maybe later, they could mourn. Maybe later, they could cry.
If there was a later.
For now, they fought.
“Hermione, help!”
Hermione's head snapped towards the sound of her name. A desperate, high-pitched shriek that echoed through the courtyard.
What she saw made her pulse stutter, then bolt.
Laura Woodbead, a sweet fifth-year girl she used to tutor, was crouched in a corner, her tall frame barely concealed behind the remains of a boulder. And closing in on her, with a cruel grin that sent chills down Hermione’s spine, was Fenrir Greyback. One of the most depraved wizards Hermione had ever encountered.
Instinctively, her eyes moved to the sky.
The sun bled low across the horizon, casting a fading light over the jagged stretch of rock and forest surrounding the castle. But it wasn’t the dying sunlight that sent a wave of dread rolling through her. It was the pale, gleaming orb rising on the other side of the sky as she turned.
Full.
Hermione’s mouth went dry, and the muscles in her legs tightened as she launched into motion, dodging stray curses and vaulting over debris. She barely registered the sting of a stray rock scraping her shin or the burn in her shoulder from holding her wand steady.
All she could think of was how tonight, Greyback wouldn’t just be a vicious man anymore.
He would become a monster.
“H-Help!” Laura’s voice cracked, making Hermione’s ears ring.
The younger girl wasn’t even moving, her arms gone slack, her body frozen like she’d been petrified.
Hermione tried to run faster, the soles of her feet slamming against the ground as a flick of Greyback’s wand sent the boulder shielding Laura splintering into shards. The girl flinched, her hands finally moving, shooting up to shield her face from the flying debris.
“Ahh!”
Greyback smiled. “Avada k—”
Hermione got there at the last possible moment."Expelliarmus!" The desperate, blunt force she poured into the spell not only stopped the killing curse mid-incantation but also sent Greyback crashing to the ground with a violent thud. He lay sprawled in the dirt, unmoving. But she didn’t dare take the time to check if he was unconscious.
She crouched beside Laura, gripping her arm and hauling her upright. “C’mon.”
The girl’s body felt limp, like she was barely aware of what was happening.
“Laura!” Hermione called, giving her arm a rough shake. “We have to move.”
She tried pulling Laura forward, hoping the motion would jar her into action, but she stayed rooted, her eyes wide and unfocused, staring at nothing.
Hermione gritted her teeth.
“You’ll pay for that, little Mudblood.” Greyback’s raspy voice suddenly crawled through the air.
Hermione’s gaze whipped around, her wand prepared, and landed on the sight of him straightening, dirt smudging his robes, his eyes flashing with a feral glint.
She waved her hand in a rush, summoning a shield between them, the barrier shimmering faintly. It wasn’t strong enough, and she knew it.
But she didn’t have time to make it stronger.
Turning back to Laura, Hermione gripped her by both arms. “Laura,” she hissed. “I can’t drag you, and I can’t fight him and protect you at the same time. Let’s go. Please.”
She could see Greyback’s hulking frame closing in.
The only thing keeping him from reaching them already was the smouldering patch of earth left by a stray Incendio. But he’d be on them in seconds, and her shield might block his spells, but it wouldn’t stop him. Nothing could stop him once he got close enough.
She shook Laura again. “If you don’t move, we’re going to die!”
The girl’s blue eyes were drenched with pain. “He k-killed her—my friend. She’s d-d-dead. She protected me, and now she’s gone.”
Hermione locked her jaw to keep the emotion at bay. “No. Not now. Grieve later.”
Laura’s face crumpled further. “W-What?”
The next blast against Hermione’s shield was so strong it sent vibrations up her arm. She let out a pained gasp, her knees almost buckling.
Hermione grabbed Laura’s wrist. “Fight! Fight for her. Don’t make her sacrifice meaningless by dying as well.”
Tears fell uncontrollably down her face, but Laura finally moved.
They ran with their hands locked together as Hermione focused on keeping them running, while Laura, released from her daze, fumbled for her wand and started casting protection spells behind them.
But Greyback wasn’t slowing.
Hermione didn’t need to look to know he was there, his presence looming, his growls inhuman. He wasn’t just chasing them.
He was hunting.
Her shoulders tensed as she stole a quick glance back. He was close. Too close.
“Damn it,” Hermione muttered under her breath, yanking Laura forward harder before spinning on her heel and aiming her own wand straight at his feet.
“Deprimo!”
The ground shattered with a thundering crack, a wide hole ripping open directly in Greyback’s path. He skidded to a halt just in time, his balance wavering dangerously at the edge, and a snarl erupted from his throat, deep and angry, his eyes blazing as they met Hermione’s.
She paused, her chest heaving, then smirked, just barely, before turning away with Laura in tow.
They didn’t stop until they were inside the castle, the heavy stone walls closing around them like a lifeline, and Hermione stumbled to the floor, lungs on fire as she fought to catch her breath.
Her legs ached, her hands felt numb, and the weight of everything was balancing precariously inside her, ready to swallow her whole.
But she was alive.
Laura was alive.
“Mione?” The familiar voice coated her in warmth. “Where the bloody hell were you?”
Rough hands cupped her chin as she rose, tilting her face up so Ron could study her, his worry plain as day.
“I’m fine,” she said, stepping back to pull herself away from his grip.
“Hermione saved my life,” a small voice said.
Ron’s head swivelled towards Laura, his lips lifting into a weary smile. “She does that.”
Boom!
The world erupted, a deafening roar tearing through the air, and the ground lurched violently beneath their feet, sending Hermione stumbling into Ron, her fingers gripping him as Laura clung to her side.
The three of them swayed together, barely keeping each other upright.
“Protego!” Ron managed to shout, one arm around Hermione while his other jerked upward.
She didn’t know how long it lasted—the walls trembling while chunks of ceiling broke free and crashed to the floor around them, cracks splintering through the stone like spiderwebs. But at least a few minutes must have passed before the tremors finally slowed, then ceased completely.
Hermione coughed, blinking against the gritty haze filling the air. Yet when her vision cleared, all she wanted was to close her eyes again and block out the image in front of her.
The same corridors she’d walked countless times before were now a crumbled mess, weak orange light streaming through gaping holes in the walls. More and more, the familiar outlines of Hogwarts were gone, replaced by scenes of devastation and loss.
She swallowed hard against the emotion rising in her throat, memories of the school flooding her mind—moments of growing up, of learning, of friendship.
And through the veil of grief and memory, one face surged to the forefront: the face of a boy who’d fought a troll for her in their first year at Hogwarts, and who’d been her friend ever since.
“Harry,” she gasped. “We need to find Harry.”
She hadn’t seen him since the battle erupted, since the moment she thought he was dead, the pain cleaving through her like a blade. And then he was alive, and her heart was thrust back together, hastily patched and bleeding at the seams.
Ron gave a sharp nod, brushing soot from his hair and shoulders. “Let’s go.”
Hermione turned to Laura. “Find an Auror, and don’t lower your wand for anyone,” she instructed, then pulled the younger girl into a hug. “Be safe. Hide if you have to.”
Survive.
Laura hugged her back tightly. “You too. And thank you—for saving my life.”
Hermione stepped away, blinking fast. “Of course.”
Laura let out a shaky smile. “We’re going to win this, right?”
Hermione let out a breath. “Yes.”
No.
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
Ron and Hermione walked through the main entrance of the school, making their way to the large courtyard where they’d last seen Harry.
The battle still raged, though its energy had waned, dulled by exhaustion and the terrible void left by those who’d fallen. Outside, where the air should’ve been clean and fresh, all she could smell was the pungent, acrid scent of death and blood. All she could hear was the clash of spells and the raw, anguished cries of the grieving.
“I don’t see him,” Hermione choked out as they moved past the courtyard, heading towards a more desolate stretch of the grounds.
Harry wasn’t here. He wasn’t fighting, and he wasn’t one of the dead.
At least, not here.
"Where do you think he could be?" Ron asked, eyebrows deeply scrunched above glassy blue eyes, as he took in the same sight as her.
"Maybe he's not in the school,” she suggested. “Voldemort took Harry to the forbidden forest before. He could have done it again."
"Could be," Ron agreed, releasing a heavy breath. "Then again, Harry could be in a lot of places by now."
"Well, we have to look somewhere," she insisted. “And I think this is our best guess.”
Ron’s mouth thinned as he looked at her. “Maybe, but Hermione…my family’s here.”
The words shook her, igniting guilt in all the places the Weasleys had made their home in her heart. She bit the inside of her cheek, tasting blood. “I-I forgot. I mean, I wasn’t thinking. I’ll go. You stay and I’ll go.”
It’s what made the most sense.
“What?” Horror twisted his features. “No!”
Her brows knitted together. “Ron, we can’t abandon Har—”
“I’m not abandoning him!” he burst out, his voice strained. “He’s my best friend. Just because I don’t want to leave my family doesn’t mean I—I-I just don’t know what to do—” He broke off, turning away and muffling an agonised scream into his arm. “Fuck!”
Hermione rushed forward, grabbing Ron’s arm to pull him upright before wrapping him in a fierce hug. “I know,” she whispered urgently. “I’m so sorry. I know.”
His head dropped onto her shoulder, and she felt his tears soaking into her neck and clothes.
She let her hand drift over his back, tracing circles in an attempt to ease his anguish, even as the voice inside her screamed that there was no time for this. She knew what had to come next. Ron would stay with his family—with the people who needed him most. And she would go, no matter how he felt about it.
Because Harry was family, too.
And though it wasn’t something she wanted to witness, an opportunity to leave without having to fight Ron about it appeared right in front of her.
“Ron, look!” She pointed to a distant figure, a flash of red hair locked in a duel with two Death Eaters. Arthur Weasley. He was holding his own, but the fight was uneven, two against one.
Ron’s gaze snapped up, seeing his father, and panic flooded his eyes.
“Go!” Hermione yelled, giving him a firm shove between his shoulder blades. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She watched as Ron hesitated only for a moment before running towards his father, leaving her standing there alone. Exhaling, she turned her face towards the forest and set off, knowing that this was her path to take—whatever may come of it.
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
The Forbidden Forest always felt wrong, its stillness unnerving, as though it were alive and watching. And as Hermione moved carefully through the dense trees, her gaze darting to the shadows, desperately searching for any trace of Harry, every step she took felt too loud, the crunch of leaves underfoot amplifying the gnawing unease that crawled beneath her skin.
It didn’t take long for the last remnants of daylight to vanish as she walked, and soon the full moon hung stark and cold in the darkened sky, its pale light only faintly outlining the gnarled roots that snaked across the forest floor.
She stumbled repeatedly, her shoes catching on hidden obstacles, each misstep dragging a curse from her lips and making her itch to summon a guiding light.
But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Because while it might help her see, it would also allow her to be seen in a place she’d very much rather remain hidden.
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
Hermione had been walking for what felt like forever, her legs dragging through the undergrowth, each step heavier than the last. The silence pressed against her like a hand around her throat, and her pulse climbed steadily higher—until a sound sliced through the night, terrifying enough to still her heart.
A howl.
Loud.
Close.
It all came rushing back, pulled from her past. The sensation of being hunted by a beast, of running with death at her back. She had been here before, and the fear from memory bled into the fear of now, until she could no longer tell them apart.
Her blood curled cold in her veins, her lungs squeezing until every breath felt stolen.
She needed to run. Just like last time.
She needed to run if she wanted to live.
But her feet refused to move, the mud gripping her boots like hands pulling her down. And for a few dangerous seconds, she let herself imagine what it might feel like to give in. To fall to her knees, press her cheek to the dirt, and let the earth take her. To stop fighting, stop thinking, stop hurting.
Another howl rang out, threading through the trees like a needle stitching her back to reality.
Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a sob. No.
She hadn’t found Harry.
She couldn’t stop until she did.
Hermione owed him that much.
Grinding her teeth and drawing on the very last remnants of strength she had, the ones barely surviving somewhere beneath her marrow-deep exhaustion, she wrenched herself forward and ran.
Fast.
As fast as she could in the dark.
─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───
Her first stumble sent her crashing to her knees, the sharp edge of a rock slicing through her trousers and into her skin. It stung, but pain like this registered on a different scale after what Bellatrix had done to her, slashing her arm open with a cursed blade and torturing her to the point her hands trembled for weeks.
Even now, it sometimes took conscious effort to still her fingers.
When the second fall came, not long after, it was marginally worse. Her left shoulder slammed hard against a tree, the bark jarring bone and muscle alike, sending pain radiating down her arm as the impact knocked her off balance.
She stayed down for a second, tears swimming in her eyes, before she forced her legs to move again.
Harry needed her.
She couldn’t give up.
She couldn’t stop.
But, as fate would have it, the third fall stopped her cold.
Her body slammed into something solid, the force sending her flying backward until she ended up on the ground, stunned and gasping.
Whatever she’d crashed into wasn’t still. It wasn’t rooted to the ground like a tree—it had been moving. Fast.
She tried to sit up, her brain firing off a frantic list of possibilities. Animal, person, werewo—
Then came the groan. Low, masculine, human.
Heart slamming against her ribs, her fingers flexed around her wand (miraculously still in her hand) and raised it blindly towards the sound. "Expelliarmus!"
Whatever reaction she was expecting when her spell disarmed her opponent, it wasn't the one she got.
A low, rasping laugh. Followed by, "If you're going to kill me, at least show me your face."
The voice was hoarse, but it still carried a trace of arrogance, like defiance was the only armour it had left. More importantly, she knew it.
She knew that bloody voice.
“Lumos.” A small, deliberately weak sphere of light spilled into the clearing, chasing a few of the shadows away.
And there he was.
Hair so pale it bordered on white, at least when it was clean. Cold grey eyes. A familiar sneer, suddenly replaced by a look of surprise.
"Malfoy.”
A moment stretched between them before he answered.
"Granger."
They were both still on the ground, staring at each other across the uneven forest floor.
"So…" he started, the light from her wand illuminating the pallor of his skin, the sheen of sweat on his brow, the line of blood tracing a path down the side of his face. "Are you going to kill me? Finally get your revenge after all these years?"
She let his question hang in the air, turning it over in her mind, until a quiet, misplaced giggle rose in her throat, bubbling up until it escaped.
Malfoy brows lifted.
"Kill you for what?" she asked, laughter still in her voice. "Being a bully?"
His eyes darkened. “Don’t act like you’ve never imagined it. Me at your mercy. Wand at my throat. Go on, Granger, make your dreams come true.”
Her amusement faded.
“Malfoy,” she exhaled, lowering her wand slightly, “do you actually believe I’ve been clinging to your pathetic little schoolyard cruelty so tightly that I’d want you dead for it?” She shook her head. “Don’t you get it?”
She looked at him—him, someone who’d made her cry more times than she could count—waiting for anger. But all she felt was— “Nothing,” she murmured. “You’re nothing.”
What was a boy like him compared to everything else?
Compared to Voldemort. Compared to the wizards who were killing the people she loved.
Compared to this war, whose destruction never seemed to end. That took and took even when she had nothing left to give.
She’d hated him once. Malfoy. He’d given her every reason. But then she learned what hate was—real hate. And he didn't wear its face.
Only its mark.
His lips parted. “Granger–“
“I’m not going to kill you,” she interrupted. “You don’t deserve to die. And honestly? I don't have the time.”
She needed to go.
To find Harry.
To help him, so he could help everyone else.
Not wanting to waste another second, Hermione forced herself to her feet, gritting her teeth through the pain, and crossed the short distance between them, bending down to retrieve his fallen wand as she went. “Here,” she said when she reached him, holding it out.
But he wasn’t looking at the wand. He was still looking at her.
She cocked a brow. “Malfoy. Do you not want it?”
That snapped him out of it, his fingers stretching towards the wand before finally gripping it. The second he had it, she turned and walked away, each step like she was moving through wet sand.
She was just about to let her Lumos spell fade when the faint glow from her wand showed her the last thing she wanted to see.
All air turned to ice in her lungs.
Fenrir Greyback.
Even in his werewolf form, she recognised him instantly, the grotesque figure she had seen once before. His beastly body loomed large, muscles rippling under his mangy fur as he lunged towards her.
Maybe she tried to move.
Maybe she didn’t.
Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.
There was no pain as she hit the ground, and for a moment, she thought it might be over, that peace had finally claimed her. But that illusion shattered as she felt it, the weight of something heavy pressing her into the earth.
She opened her eyes, ready to face death.
Instead, she was met with deep pools of ash, blazing with ferocity, and something else she couldn’t name.
Then he screamed.
A terrifying, agony-filled scream.