"Now, you know there was a woman named Hermione Granger."
"I don't understand you sometimes," she whispered.
"What do you mean, Granger?" he asked in a low voice, not bothering to look up from the window he stared out of.
"I mean, we lived through a genocide and survived, yet you have no hope. No will to live."
"Why should I? I've lived in the most grand houses, slept in the most pristine beds under the most expensive sheets, bought things beyond your wildest dreams, and it added up to nothing. Why would I want to live?"
"Because. There's much more to live for than items. Expectations. I should know."
He remembered her family situation. Poor. Never spending more than was on the weekly budget. Her thin body cloaked in robes like blankets. He remembered her life. Tortured by everyone, physically and mentally. Looked down upon. Thought of as less. Gone through a war to prove that she was human, too.
And she came out dying for something worth living for.
"I suppose."
"And that she saved me."
"Draco, please don't," he heard behind him.
His foot teetered on the wrong side of the railing, the ground hundreds of feet below just over the edge of his toe. His head tilted to the side. "Why not?"
"Because," she stuttered. "Because, because-
"Because, because, because," he mocked.
"Because you can't! You can't and you won't!"
"I want too, I need to. You don't understand Granger. You don't. You never have, never will. You don't."
"You think I don't understand?" she shouted. "You think I don't know how it feels! You're wrong, Draco! You're wrong. Move away!"
He was on the opposite side of the railing, his hands holding him up as he looked down at his dress shoes.
"Give me a reason."
"What?"
"I said give me a reason. You can't. My fathers in Azkaban. My mother is barely alive, on house arrest and going mad. I have no friends. Crabbes dead. Goyle's dead. I'm dead. I'm not alive. I exist and only exist."
"If not for anything, then, for me. Stay alive for me. There's your fucking reason, Draco. Me. I'm begging you."
He looked over his shoulder. There she was, tear stricken and on her knees. Begging.
"Why are you my reason?"
She came to him, reaching to interlock their hands on the wooden railing. "Because I'm so head over heels in love with you that if you die, I'll become just like you."
"In every way that a person can be saved."
"Draco!" she called, throat hoarse and desperate to make sound.
Because he was too busy smiling with her about how in love they were that he was too late to turn around and see the silver mask in a black cloak behind him, wand out.
She jumped, putting herself between the escaped prisoner and her love."No!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Are you ready to go back to Hogwarts?" the man across from him in a suit asked. They were interviewing the students in Harry's year ten years after the war to see what they remembered and what it was like.
"I don't even have a picture of her," he mumbled, still lost in thought as so many memories flashed across his eyelids.
"Draco!"
He sat up in bed, a smile instinctively fighting to take over his face at the sight of her. Her wild curls, oversized clothes, large book in hand, a healthy flush on her face, and a smile from ear to ear.
"Hermione!" he replied, mocking her voice playfully.
"I want to show you something!"
"At six-thirty in the morning?"
"You've been up anyway! Get dressed, chop chop!" She tossed a pair of jeans, a tee, a hoodie, and a jacket at his face, grinning. "We're going somewhere."
He rolled his eyes, but got dressed anyway.
Before his arms were all the way through the jacket, she was tugging on him and leading him from the dorms. Down the corridors.
"Ready?" she asked as they turned the corner. A long hallway stood before them, an open archway at the end that led outside. Rain poured down on the grass beyond.
"For?"
"I'm going to beat you to that archway."
He quickly caught on. "Like hell you will."
"Ready, set-
"Go!" he shouted, taking off before she could process it.
"Hey!" she yelled, sprinting behind him. She finally caught up, running as hard as her legs could go down the hall next to him.
They were grinning, laughing. Their hair was a mess. They were a mess.
Before they knew it, they were in the rain. The freezing cold, pouring rain. They skidded to a stop in the big field outside.
Hermione let out a scream of delight and happiness into the air, throwing her arms and head back and letting the rain cover her in it's love. Draco followed suit, laughing into the sky. He charged at her, picking her up and spinning the two of them around. She laughed and grinned, screaming and yelling out her happiness with him. Their hair dripped. Their bodies dripped. But they kept each other warm.
He suddenly stopped, setting her down and taking back the inches she had gained.
"What?" she asked, her smile disappearing.
He just shook his head, leaning down and crashing their lips together. She tasted like honey and chamomile tea, he of spearmint and ice. It was messy and damp and cold, hard to kiss each other from the grins that wouldn't leave their mouths.
The interviewer sighed, leaving the room and Draco alone in it. As he shut the door behind him, he looked up at Harry. His features older, mature. Stubble lining his jaw.
"Why's he so upset?"
"You're making him relive Hermione."
"But why did he love her so much when allegedly they hated each other."
"Oh, no, they used to. But she saved him."
He tilted his head inquisitively, staring at the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Draco wanted to die, and Hermione wanted to live. Hermione died for Draco and Draco lived for Hermione."
