Walking Away

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"Walking Away"

       He stood in front of her, his silver eyes staring through her, her stomach flipped again and again as his grip on her tightened.

       She felt the pain but he didn't touch her, she felt as if she was going to faint but his eyes wouldn't let her fall.

        She wanted to reach out and touch him but he wouldn't let her near. She knew what she wanted wasn't going to happen. She wanted him to let her save him. It wouldn't happen . . . just yet.

       "What did you say mudblood?" he whispered harshly, looking down into her brown eyes, noticing only the tears that she refused to allow to fall.

       "I said, Malfoy, that he deserved to die," she replied with little venom in her voice and more love in her eyes. If he had been another man, he would have noticed the love that she didn't speak of but he wasn't another man and he saw no love.

       "My father did NOT deserve to die!" Draco yelled, his voice crumbling under the reality that his father was dead.

       "Neither did Harry," Hermione retorted softly, just as he finally let go of her she envisioned a tear treading down his pale cheek but there was no tear.

       Draco looked away from her with a dark laugh, throwing his hands in the air, exclaiming, "Harry. It's always about Harry isn't it? He's six feet under and I still can't get away from him!"

       She glared at the man that stood before her with something less than contempt. "He died saving you . . . that's why you can't get away from him."

       He turned her with confusion floating over his sharp features. "But why did he save me? Why? He stood and watched Voldemort kill my father, why did he save me?"

       "Because he knew someone couldn't live without you," Hermione answered honestly, as she stared at the stone floor that kept them from falling into the abyss below them.

       "Who? Who in the world couldn't live without Draco 'Ferret-Face' Malfoy?" Draco asked tiredly, in a mocking tone, as he leaned on the cold stone wall of the dark corridor.

       "I couldn't," was her only answer before she walked past him, leaving him stunned beyond compare.

       He reached for her but she had gone, leaving him alone for the very first time.

~*~

       Ten years later Hermione was standing next to Ginny Potter as she laid her flowers on Harry's grave on the anniversary of his demise. Ginny had never gotten over the school girl crush she had developed on Harry in her first year and he couldn't turn away from the strongest love he'd ever felt. They'd only been married nine months when he died and Ginny worshiped their son with all her heart.

       Ginny turned around to her older friend with a small, sad smile, saying, "You know I had a visitor the other day."

       "Who?" Hermione asked as she linked arms with the fragile young woman who lived only for a ten-year-old boy named who was the spitting image of his father.

       "A friend of mine from Hogwarts, I do believe you know him, he was older than us, Marcus Flint," Ginny replied as Hermione guided her to the flying car that was aging just as quickly as they were.

       "Oh, the Slytherin. What did he want?" she asked, looking over at the barely thirty-year-old woman, whom she was guiding as if she was an elderly woman of eighty.

       "Just to say hello and to see Jonathon, seems Jonathon and Marcus' son made friends over the summer and Marcus wanted to tell him his son would be at Hogwarts next year, also," Ginny answered. At first she had refused to send Jonathon to Hogwarts and was prepared to hire a full-time tutor but Jonathon had begged until she had given in.

       Hermione's mind had left the adorable sight of James and went elsewhere, where her twenty-nine-year-old heart lain. "Did he say anything else?"

       Ginny grinned knowingly at her friend. "He also said something about Malfoy taking a job as an Auror at the Ministry. Marcus also told me that finally, after ten years, he decided to stay in one town."

       "And where is that?" Hermione whispered, without any intention of going to see him, after all, their last conversation was rather awkward.

        "Not two miles south of The Burrow, they say he's built a cozy little home down there, Jonathon went and helped him unpack yesterday. Jonathon said that Draco stared at him the entire time, not with malice, but something like sadness. Marcus says that he's been a different man since the night he crossed the abyss but no one really knows what happened," she continued steadily as she sat in the car, gazing ahead with a look of long past hope.

       "Aren't we all a little different now?" Hermione asked softly, as the car lifted into the air, she was lost in thought the entire time she drove.

       When Hermione landed the car a little boy with glasses, blue eyes, and dark untidy hair came running out of the house. Both Ginny and Hermione grinned, he didn't inherit his grandmother's eyes but they didn't his eyes to be emerald to remind them of a man they thought of every day.

       Jonathon ran over to his mother's side of the car and helped her out while calling to Hermione, "Aunt Hermione, there's someone in the house who wanted to see you."

       Hermione looked at Jonathon then at his mother, who was smiling with something akin to childish excitement. She was surprised, very seldom did she have visitors. "Who is it, Jon?"

       "Our new neighbor," Jonathon replied with the same naive voice his father spoke in for years.

       Somehow Ginny had talked her son into taking her for a walk for some reason that made no sense and she sent Hermione into the house alone.

       Mr. Weasley initially built the house for Ron after he and Pansy Parkinson got married but they moved away after Arthur Weasley died. So that left Ginny, Jonathon, and Hermione which, much to Molly Weasley happiness, decided to stay close to the Weasley family. Yet, Hermione had no choice, the war had taken her entire life from her and left her with so little that she held what she did have left so tightly that it drew blood.

       Hermione walked in, took off her coat in the foyer and continued into the living room where a tall, blond, muscular figure was standing in front of the fire. "Hello."

       Draco turned toward her with a little gasp escaping his parted lips, he could only speak one word: "Hermione."

       "How are you?" she asked cordially, as she closed the door behind her and looked over his tall, lean, frame.

       "Better now," Draco smirked as he sat, his smirk wasn't like it used to be, now it could almost be considered a smile. "How are you and Ginny?"

       Hermione sat in front of him looking into his eyes, idly wondering where the time had gone, she had become so accustomed to being a mother to Jonathon that she had forgotten the time and the place that it had brought her to. "I'm living and Ginny . . . has been better."

       "She never healed after that bloody wound and his death, did she?" he asked, looking down at his hands, thinking of the boy he loved to hate during his time at Hogwarts and how much that same man meant to him now.

       "It seems none of us can forget," Hermione whispered. "You know, Draco, the Mediwizard says Ginny won't last long enough for him to start Hogwarts, she's insisted that I take care of him, and that I will."

       "I could think of no better person for the job," he stated, as he finally looked up from his hands, with something of a determined look in his eye. "Hermione, I came here today to say something to you that I should have said ten years ago."

       Hermione was silent as she stood and peered into his eyes with anticipation.

       "Thank you," Draco whispered, his eyes conveying such sincerity that it almost hurt.

       Hermione stood, just seconds away from his lips. "Thank you? Thank you for what?"

       "For not being able to live without me, I'm a better man for it," Draco whispered, he pulling her closer to him.

       "I still can't," Hermione whispered, softly touching her lips to his, sending tingles down his spine and through his body.

       Draco pulled away and turned her attention to his hand, his ring finger. "I'm married Hermione. Something that had to happen, I just needed to see you before I go to her again, I just needed you to realize that there's nothing without you."

       "Draco -- " She began but he placed his finger over her lips.

       "I'm sorry I couldn't be here when you needed me and I'm sorry I have walk through that door but you need to always know that this isn't the end, Hermione Granger. Don't change, Hermione, don't ever change," he whispered quickly and kissed her one last time before he picked up his coat and walked through the door without so much as a look behind him.

       Hermione didn't move, she just stood in that spot staring at the space that once held Draco Malfoy. He loved for her loving him when no one else did but it wasn't enough to make his mother's demands on proper marriage go away. It wasn't enough to take ten years away from their past.

       She still lived for him, she always had, and even now she was determined not to stop. She would just have to live with never feeling those lips against hers again, never feeling the softness of his skin against hers, never releasing the passion that threatened to consume her. She shut her eyes as threatening tears stood at their edges and she didn't move again until a tearful, shaken, Jonathon Potter ran into the room crying, yelling about his mother.

~*~

       Hermione and Jonathon stood looking at the home that they would leave behind.

       After Ginny died seven years ago Molly had gone down hill and when Molly had died at the beginning of Jonathon's seventh year Hermione had decided to leave. Go home to a life she was almost afraid to live, a life far away from the one she had created seventeen years before, and Jonathon was determined to go with her.

       "You ready, Auntie?" Jonathon asked as they stood in front of the Burrow his, now brilliant, blue eyes full of tears.

       Hermione looked back at him, willing herself not to call him Harry, whispering, "As ready as I'll ever be, Jon."

.....

       Just as she turned to walk to the car that would take them to their new home a familiar face greeted them, "Morning Hermione, Jonathon."

       "Morning, Mr. Malfoy," Jonathon smiled as he put the last of Hermione's bags into the car.

       She turned to Draco with surprise written all over her face. "Draco."

       "I heard you were leaving, you didn't owl me," Draco whispered looking more disappointed than he should. He had been alone since his wife died during the birthing of their only son three years earlier.

       "How's Liam?" Hermione asked of the very adorable son that Draco protected with his life.

       "Anxious to visit you again," Draco replied simply, Hermione had done a lot of things for Liam since he was born. "I can't believe you would leave without seeing him."

       "I saw him, Loppy brought him down this morning," Hermione smiled thinking of the little boy who would make his grandfather and father proud his appearance, his temper, and his charm.

       "How's Jonathon?" Draco asked taking her by the arm and leading her toward the house-elf that was holding the little boy.

       "Like his father, holding up no matter what," Hermione replied proudly with a sad smile just as she grabbed the three-year-old who immediately started to pull at her hair with a happy laugh.

       "Hermy," Liam giggled, he had picked up the name from Jonathon, who as a three year old also had problems saying Hermione.

       "Look, you could always come stay with Liam and me, I would be more than happy to have you both," Draco whispered, as Liam found something exciting about Hermione's face.

...

     "Aunty," Jonathon called, as he sat in the car watching at her stare up at the house that had protected them all those years, "let's go!"

       Hermione was pulled from her reverie and discovered that Draco hadn't come, that she had dreamt his presence, as she had many times before, and began her walk to the car when the wind began to blow. She was almost afraid to open the door, a feeling came upon her that almost made her afraid to leave but then the reality there was nothing to stay for hit her. Draco had long ago died, along with that adorable three-year-old that she had come to love like he was her own. The abyss had returned and swallowed the last of the Malfoy line just as it had longed to seventeen years before; yet, this time she couldn't save him when the abyss turned to water and drowned them both.

       "Aunty, are you feeling a bit off today?" Jonathon asked as he jumped out the car and grabbed her arm, the emotion shining brightly in his eyes.

       

       "I haven't been myself for years, Jon," Hermione whispered, as he led her back to the car.

       Jonathon sent her an understanding smile while he shut her door and got in the car. "I know that walking away from this place after all these years must be hard."

       "I'm walking away from more than just that house, Jon," she replied, stoically, as he started the car and it lifted steadily into the air, "I'm walking away from my life. Everyone from my life is dead and gone and now only I have the opportunity to walk again, only I, Jon, only I. Pray that you never know the feeling, for sometimes surviving is worse than not making it back from the war."