Two Souls' Lament

"If you could make someone go away forever, would you? If you could make someone disappear, not die, but disappear, would you? " That was what he once said to her, back a long time ago when life was better. When life was full of secrets. Secrets are usually perceived as bad things, as if all information should be shared with the world and as if once one's secrets were shared, everything would be alright and everyone would be happy. Happiness, she thought bitterly, was so overrated. Many people didn't understand how she could be unhappy about what had happened. But, then again, many people hadn't been in love with Draco Malfoy.

--Flashback to a couple of years ago--

"We need to tell them, Draco," Hermione had stated her thought for the first time in the six months of their relationship, but they had both known how she felt for quite some time. They had just never talked about it until then. He supposed he should have seen it coming. Her morals wouldn't let her keep their relationship secret forever. He just wished he had thought about it before, about what he should say when the need arose. He thought about how much

he loved her, about how much she had changed his life, and realized that there was only one thing he could do, one thing he could say. A year ago, he would have rather drowned himself in Flobberworm mucus after spending five days in the Muggle world without his wand, than admit Hermione Granger was right about something, especially something that affected him. But he was different now,they were both different.

"You're right, Hermione. We do need to tell them. The world deserves to know about us and we deserve to be known about."

Hermione was pleasantly surprised. This was quite a change of heart for Draco. Usually he didn't give a damn about telling the truth, just about upholding his reputation. And with his current thoughts, although she couldn't be entirely sure his opinion wouldn't change later, he certainly didn't seem to care about his reputation. At least, not as much as she thought he would.

--End Flashback--

They had been discussing morals, she remembered, shortly before the biggest mistake of her life. During one of their frequent debates in the library, he had suddenly sprung that question on her. And she had really been forced to think about it. Usually, she didn't give much thought to questions about morals; she thought she knew exactly where she stood. But that question had been so unexpected, coming from his mouth!

But she would never be surprised by him again, never hear his voice or feel his touch. They had both thought that they would be together forever, that nothing, barring death, could come between them. And they had both been wrong.

--Flashback to 1 year, 9 months ago--

"Hermione," Draco said as calmly as he possibly could under the circumstances, "have you seen the paper?"

"Of course not! I just got up, and you had already taken it."

"Well, I think you might want to flip to page A2."

Hermione flipped dutifully to page A2, wondering what on earth had been so important that Draco had been forced to give up his morning paper so quickly. By the way, she thought, where did Draco go? She turned to the page and suddenly she realized that her life was about to change forever. Right there in front of her was a picture. Well, two pictures. One was of her and Draco, holding hands as they walked along an obscure beach in Spain. The other was of Lucius Malfoy, making a rather rude and threatening gesture. The headline above read "Heir to the Malfoy fortune in love with a Muggleborn, Lucius Malfoy threatening to disown". It had only been about six hours since she and Draco went public about their relationship, and apparently Lucius was furious. She wondered where Draco had gotten to. She would have thought he would want to be here when she read the article, to reassure her about how much he loved her and about how his father didn't matter. Then she saw the note...

--End Flashback--

The note. Why did she have to keep reminding herself of that? She had it memorized by now, of course. She closed her eyes and pictured the words that changed her life.

"My dearest Hermione, I can no longer be with you. I love you more than anything else in the world, and so I must go, for your sake. Ever since Potter died trying to defeat the Dark Lord, he has gotten stronger and you know it. Of course you do - you know many things. Well, my point is, the Dark Lord will come for you, and he will come for me, and I don't want to have you risk everything just to die.

"I love you and will never forget you.

"Draco."

Even today, she still cried when she read it. She thought of what could have been, of how happy they could have been, together. Covertly so, yes, but still together. Still happy.

She thought she knew everything. That her knowledge could never hurt her. But she was wrong, she knew she was wrong, and she knew that she had brought this upon herself. That he was never coming back. But what she did not know was that 1700 miles away, someone was missing her just as much, and lamenting what could have been.

~fin