Shifted

Essence

Hermione left as soon as she was cleared to be able to walk. (Fred was the one that cleared her, and though he insisted he didn't know what he was doing, she took his word as gospel and apparated away.)

Malfoy was seriously injured. If it was anyone else, Hermione would've been sure they were dead. The odds that someone would have the energy to both apparate and not pass out straight away were comedically slim.

But Malfoy wasn't the typical person. He had Dark Magic on his side. Hermione would like to think that if she was finally able to kill him, karma would be on her side and she would be able to watch the life drain from his eyes.

She chased around Malfoy's trail for weeks. His injury would have been easy to heal superficially using magic, but he should have been exhausted. The pace at which he was moving suggested he was capable and healthy. It was possible there was more Dark Magic at work, but Hermione suspected that he knew she was close and he was keeping the chase going.

It was in the way the abandoned sheds and cabins she found were messy, with scraps of food scattered across the counter and pieces of clothing hastily left out. She grabbed it all up, threw it into a cauldron and brewed a tracing potion. It's new. So new that she suspected the Death Eaters hadn't figured it out yet.

But Malfoy wasn't ignorant and he knew better. Hermione was a closed book but he didn't need to read her to know what was going on. If he threw his hatred and arrogance aside for a few minutes he'd be able to figure out their entire war plan and everything after. He could tear it down before Harry's dead corpse hit the ground.

Malfoy could rule the world, and as much as Hermione wanted to take him down to drag the Order closer to Voldemort, she knew it was much deeper than that, that he had much more potential than he'd let on. She was assigned to kill Malfoy, so she'd made it her life. Through that she'd realized the truth.

If the new world were to ever have a chance, Draco Malfoy needed to die.

After nearly a month of searching, Hermione finally caught up to him. She came upon an abandoned cabin with a light orange hue shining from the windows. It was rickety, blowing and bending with the wind, but she suspected it was being reinforced with magic.

She approached slowly, crouched down and crab walking towards the front door. There were leaves and fallen debris on the ground that she stepped over with the grace that Hogwarts era Hermione could only dream of.

At the stairs to the porch she noticed large circles of blood ascending up and increasing in size. The edges were dry and flaking while the liquid in the middle pooled a dark red.

Hermione furrowed her brow, mouth dropping open slightly.

There was a slim chance that Malfoy was still injured; at most he should be experiencing some discomfort and exhaustion, but still bleeding?

Harry had said they found the place where Malfoy normally went to be healed. Hermione had found evidence he was there and had used that to track him.

So why was he still bleeding?

Hermione crouched down deeper and reached into her cloak for her wand. Whatever injury had brought him to a standstill was not from Hermione.

It was sheer luck that the stairs didn't creak under her weight and a testament to how hurt Malfoy must have been that there were only four wards she had to break through to enter the door.

Once inside, she could see the light was coming from a sitting room in the back of the house. She stayed low, head tracking from side to side and wand prodding for any additional wards that might be hidden.