Shed Not a Tear

His tall figure would have been lost to the night if not for the illumination of the moon, but its pale beams served their purpose in outlining the silhouette against the darkness, giving him a surreal, almost ethereal glow. He did not move, did not stir, he simply stood there, unaware - or at least uncaring - of the rain that fell about him in silver shards; untouched by the wind that billowed his cloak back like a pair of wings created to bear him away from there, off to a place deserving of such tragic beauty.

She stood there studying him, knowing that she did not share the same poignant grace. She was aware of each droplet of rain that splattered against the material of her cloak and clung to her hair, causing it to fall in sopping waves around her face. She knew the rain washed away her tears before they had a chance to fall, and she was grateful at least for that, because the sight of him made her want to cry.

Draco Malfoy lifted his head to the sky, observing its clouded depths with dispassionate grey eyes as if doing little more than casually gazing at stars that were not even visible.

But when Hermione Granger looked at that same sky, she sought an answer to questions she didn't even know to ask.

She wrapped her arms around herself as if to trap some of the remaining warmth beneath her rain soaked clothing, and walked over to where he stood, stopping only once she was a mere pace away.

If he even so much as took note of her presence, he showed no sign - but she knew he was aware of the fact she was there, and she knew he hated the idea that she might be pitying him at that very moment, and she also knew that he was too proud to tell her so.

They stood like that as seconds ticked away - valuable seconds, she realized, seconds they should be using to some end. She wanted desperately to say or do the right thing, but for once had no solution - what could possibly be said? She knew no shallow words of comfort would crack the shell of ice he had built around himself, and that he would hate her for offering them to him.

The wind began to blow more fiercely, but still he stood there against the storm, almost in defiance of its power.

He turned finally to look at her, and his pale features were without expression, as if chiseled from fine marble. The only thing marring his flawless dignity was a small cut on his forehead, which had long since stopped bleeding, all traces of sanguine washed away by the rain. She had tried to heal it for him, but he had refused, even though it would leave a scar.

Perhaps, she thought, he wanted that reminder of why he had sacrificed so much.

"Why did you do it?" she finally asked, a question that had been nagging at her ever since their return to the castle, but which she had been afraid to ask - until now.

He didn't respond, and as more seconds passed, punctuated only by the sound of the wind and the splashes of rain, she began to think he wasn't going to.

"What do you want me to say, Granger?" he said at length, his voice carrying the same drawling, insolent tone it always had.

She stared at him in confusion, and her expression showed it.

"Do you want me to say I did it because I was misguided all along and there really is good in everyone?" he asked scathingly, "That I had a sudden revelation? That I really tormented you and your friends all these years because I was envious?"

He offered a nonchalant shrug, a smirk curving at his lips.

"While we're at it, maybe I did it because I'm secretly in love with Harry Potter."

Hermione narrowed her eyes angrily at him, but held back the remark that rose to the tip of her tongue. She didn't want to say anything she might regret later.

"You saved my life," she said instead.

"And took one in return," he responded coldly, but there was a flicker of *something* in his grey eyes, and she was both heartened and saddened to see it there.

"But -"

"Stop dancing around the subject, Granger," he continued flatly. "We both know it - I'm a murderer."

Harry had been determined that he should face Voldemort alone - and in the spirit of doing things alone, Ron had, of course, had to go with him. They left Hermione behind, deciding that she could do more good where she was - and, she knew, they didn't want her to be more in the path of danger than she already was. They thought she would be safe there.

They were wrong.

A Death Eater, one they seemed to have missed on their way up, had come out of nowhere and grabbed her by the wrist, taking her wand with physical force and turning it back on her.

She had wrenched her wrist away and stumbled back from the cloaked figure, but in the narrow corridor there was nowhere to go - the only route of escape was blocked by her attacker.

And so, Hermione Granger, the cleverest witch at Hogwarts, had closed her eyes and prepared to die at the end of her own wand, all because she had been too careless.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Her vision filled with a searing flash of green light, but she felt no pain - only the trembling of her own hands. She realized that it had been a voice other than that of her attacker who had uttered the words of the spell, and as the body of the Death Eater crumpled to the floor at her feet, she found herself standing face-to-face with the last person she had ever expected to save her life.

"It was defense of another person!" Hermione interjected sharply, and she shook her head in denial of how he could be so simply blithe about something as important as this.

Though that was easily explained - because he was, after all, a Malfoy.

But perhaps not so much, for no Malfoy would have ever betrayed his family's expectations like that - since birth, Draco had been taught what to do and how to do it; what to say, how to act, how to *think*. Seventeen years of breeding were broken in a single night.

"Murder is murder," he said quietly, and she knew that was the end of that. He would say nothing more about it, even if she prodded him to - and she didn't want to waste time with it. Her opinion didn't matter - he had already sentenced himself to that fate, as judge, jury, and executioner.

"Thank you," she said instead, and he accepted it without a word, though she hoped he found some comfort in the fact she was grateful for what he had done - though she would almost rather be dead than have him destroyed by the blood he had on his hands.

She shivered again, noting the rain had begun to taper off into a light shower - and it was without the steady stream that she had begun to feel colder. A weight appeared on her shoulders, and she found Draco had given her his cloak, a faint look of apology on his face - the first expression to appear there since she had followed him out there.

She looked up at him and frowned, starting to deny the gift - ordinarily, it would seem such an insignificant gesture, but she knew that he would go in the clothing he wore, and likely have nothing else the entire time - but bit her tongue and instead said nothing, choosing to allow him that.

"I'd charm it to be warm and dry," he said ruefully, "but they snapped my wand. Nice wand, too, had a core of dragon heartstring -"

"Stop," she snapped, more sharply than she had intended, but she could allow it no longer.

He simply stared at her, seeming distantly amused, but otherwise unaffected.

"How can you do this?" she demanded, throwing her hands into the air. "How can you just stand here and pretend like there's nothing wrong?"

Hermione shook her head as he still remained unresponsive, though the smirk had faded from his lips and he looked at her with a gravely serious expression.

"How can you act so calm when I'm going to pieces?" she asked wearily.

"In a little while they're coming and they're going to take you away to a place no one should have to go, and the Dementors are going to just suck out every happy memory you've ever had . . ."

"Then," Draco responded, nonplused by her outburst, "I don't have anything to lose."

Hermione stared at him, her expression going blank, until gradually a look of confusion came over her.

"Nothing?" she asked in a hushed tone.

"I didn't exactly have a happy childhood, Granger," he stated, and for the first time she could feel his defenses start to lower.

"My father didn't raise a son, he raised an heir. My mother did whatever my father wanted. I didn't have friends - I had followers. I wasn't meant to be liked, I was meant to be feared. I had a part to play in all this - it just wasn't what they thought it would be."

She watched him sorrowfully as he spoke, but he seemed unaware of it - he simply continued speaking as if imparting something he had needed for a long while to say.

"You were the first person to really stop and care whether there was something to me besides the prefect and Head Boy, the heir of a fortune who bought his way onto the Quidditch team -"

He laughed softly, humorlessly.

"But cheer up - maybe you can come visit and bring me a file."

Irrationally, she wanted then nothing more than to take her wand and spirit him from there, rescue him from the fate he didn't deserve - but of course, there were anti-apparition charms on Hogwarts grounds, and she knew she would never defy wizarding law like that, however unfair, and she knew that Draco felt this to be justice, and he would not run from it.

Dumbledore, of course, had protested the verdict fiercely, using the argument that Draco was only a seventeen-year-old boy, an under aged wizard, and that he had done it in defense of another. He had murdered that man to save Hermione's life, yes, but that still didn't change his past affiliation with the Dark Lord, or the fact that he was Lucius Malfoy's son, the heir of Voldemort's right hand. It didn't change the fact that Fudge was under heavy outside pressure to make sure everyone with a remote possibility of helping Voldemort rise again was put away this time.

"Draco, I -"

She gazed at him and felt the burning sting of tears in her eyes.

"Don't," he said, shaking his head - and she knew the wall he had built around himself was going back up.

"Don't what?" she asked senselessly.

"Don't cry for me."

He smiled at her then, not a smirk or a sneer, but a genuine smile, sad and speaking of a lost childhood and a life that had not gone at all the direction that it should have - but he did not hold regrets.

"In just a few days, I'm going to forget all about you - and I don't want my last memory to be of you like this. Not for me."

Then he leaned down and kissed her, and it was not the passionate, fiery kiss of lovers, but a simple chaste kiss upon her lips, through which she tasted the bitter rain and the sweetness of the gesture, and - distantly - the salty tang of tears.

He pulled away from her then, and she remained speechless, her heart skipping a beat as Dumbledore and Snape emerged from the castle, followed by Cornelius Fudge, Arthur Weasley, and a fifth, malevolent figure - a Dementor of Azkaban.

Draco remained stoic throughout it all, prideful until the end. He did not flinch at the cold she knew he must have felt from the Dementor's presence - for she felt it too, and it chilled her to her soul - and he did not show fear of what was to come. He simply nodded to them, and went along quietly into the custody of the Ministry officials, not even sparing a glance back.

It wasn't until they had taken him away that she felt the weight of his words.

"I'm going to forget all about you."

It wasn't until he was gone that she realized he had found a happy memory after all.