I do not own any of the characters used in the below piece.

2010.02.16. 03:08 EST. I don't know what I was trying to do with this. It just kind of came out. It's been a while since I've written anything complete. I'm actually working on another Draco x Hermione piece. With Hamlet involved. We'll see how that goes. Might get back into Naruto too.

Roman numerals simply indicate chronological order.

Dedicated to AlinaLotus and her Kissing You, a short Draco x Pansy piece, for their inspiration.

dementia ( noun ) a rejection of reality

IX.

When the Dark Lord dies, the entire world is in shock for three days. It has been four years, two months, and ten days since the end of the war.

On the fourth day after the Dark Lord dies, the wizarding community implodes as people grab for power. Society degenerates into several factions as all the top Death Eaters scramble for power over each other. Draco stays out of it and shuts himself away in his manor. The garden provides any food he might need and he has no interest in power. Several factions court him. He is a powerful man. He killed the Boy-Who-Lived-then-Died-Like-Any-Other. Whomever has him will surely win. He burns all invitations and shoots down every owl he sees.

The boredom of being shut in makes his talkative. He sits in her closet with her, explaining everything that is going on to silent eyes that watch him carefully without rest. Sometimes, she allows him to lay his head on her lap and she strokes his hair. Other times, she leans against him so gently she might as well not be there at all. One day, he brings in all the letters he receives that day instead of burning them. He hands them to her to read, sardonically declaring she might be interested in the obnoxiously flowery language in them. He does this for a week. By then, he has collected letters from almost all the factions and has a room full of owls that are waiting for a reply.

At the end of the week, he enters the closet to hand her food and receives in return a single letter, addressed to him from B. Zabini. Draco stares. He has not been looking at the names. He did not think he would receive a letter from Blaise whom he has not talked to since Pansy died. He opens the letter.

The next day, Draco emerges from his self-sentenced house arrest and announces his support for Blaise Zabini.

Two weeks later, Blaise is declared Minister of Magic. Draco is his right-hand man.

Two months later, Blaise is assassinated by his secretary.

-

They catch him about ready to go to bed. They disable his alarms. They are smart. He kills four of them. There is one left. Draco sees the man's lips start to form an 'ah'. Neither of them sees the shadow slip out of the closet. Draco is ridiculously grateful he let her keep her wand.

He hugs her. She kisses him. For a moment, they are transported back in time, into a reality where they are tipsy and getting drunker from each other, giggling and laughing and kissing without worrying about getting caught and killed. The end of the kiss brings them back to a room with five dead bodies sprawled on the floor, but Draco and Hermione pay them no mind and instead kiss each other again, searching for the momentary time travel back to happier times.

Two hours later, they fall asleep in each other's arms.

Three hours later, they do not awake as they are enveloped in green light.

VI.

When she first comes to him, she is pale and withdrawn, mute and blind and deaf all at once. He remembers her being more vibrant than this, with fluffier brown hair, but the hair is limp now and fading into a dull mud, no longer a lustrous chocolate color. She doesn't punch him or point her wand at him or threaten him in any way. Instead, she looks at him blankly, licks her lips, and nods once, not in gratitude, before resuming her staring at nothing.

He puts her in a hidden room within his closet. It is not as large as the actual rooms within his manor, but it is safer and the knowledge of its existence will appear on no map but the one in his own head. His father might have been able to betray the hiding spot, but his father is dead now. His mother may have pleaded with him not to put himself at such risk, but his mother has been checked into St. Mungo's indefinitely for dementia. He dismisses all the house elves when his mother dies, because he never really needed them anyways and they are dangerous to have around. He will not forget about Dobby, who had been bound by ancient oaths but still managed to betray his family.

She stays in her room. Every so often, he leaves the door of the closet open at night, as he sleeps, and she steps out to creep around the shadows. She is a waif, practically transparent with lack of life. Sometimes, he is still awake when she comes out and he will watch her through hooded eyes, feigning sleep, wondering how he arrived in such a position. At some point, he starts sleeping on one side of the large mattress, leaving the other side of the bed's blanket folded back. Sometimes, the mattress is warm where his body did not touch.

IV.

"Malfoy," Harry looks scared. No, scratch that – he looks terrified. Terrified and tired and desperate. Which explains why he has approached Draco. Clearly he is not thinking. "Malfoy, I need your help."

Oh yes, most definitely crazy, Draco concludes, blinking. His mouth opens and closes elegantly. "And what," he asks flatly, forgetting to be malicious in his surprise, "are you thinking asking me for help?"

"Please."

Draco keeps staring. The scar must have finally gotten infected and thus Potter's brain is now out of wack. Yes, that must be it. "Potter, you should check yourself into St. Mungo's. Who knows, maybe you'll meet my mother and you two can run off into a fantasy world together." He must be tired too, if he is talking to Potter like this. When was the last time he has slept? Draco can't remember. There is a war going on now, after all, and Potter is on the other side. He shakes his head. "I don't have time for this. Because you're clearly not in your right mind, I will close my eyes and count to ten and hopefully you will be gone by then. And if not, then I suppose I shall have to follow my orders and capture you." Yes, that sounds suitably evil. Draco closes his eyes and starts counting.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

Draco opens his eyes.

Harry is still there. He is watching Draco. Draco stares back. Draco slaps himself.

"Fuck."

"It's not a dream," Harry states the obvious. Draco just groans and pulls out his wand. Now he is obliged to put in some effort. Great. "Please, just hear me out." Draco gives Harry an exasperated look, but waits not-so-patiently.

"You were in love with her," Harry starts. Draco immediately knows this will end badly. "Don't look surprised, it was obvious. She tried to hide it from us, but it was obvious by the end of the first week, let alone during the rest of the six months in which you two hid your relationship."

Draco lowers his wand. Potter is clearly not here to kill him, although Draco might still kill Harry. He still has orders, after all.

"She loved you too. I think maybe she still does. I hope to god you still do. Do you?"

Draco does not answer. Harry swallows and continues.

"We're losing."

Draco nods once. There is no sympathy, no satisfaction, no rage, no pity. It is true. The Dark Lord is winning. He is winning. That means Potter is losing. That means she is losing. Logic. It never fails. And to be completely logical, it would make more sense to say the Dark Lord has already won at this point which means he has won which means Potter has lost which means she has lost which means they will die. Logic.

"I love her."

Draco knows without Harry telling him. He knows how Harry feels. He knows what Harry will say.

"I have to save her."

Draco raises his wand again and points it at Harry's heart.

Harry understands.

VII.

Sometimes, Draco will wake up and all he will see is green. The green of his sheets, the green of his carpet. The green of the killing curse. The green of Harry's eyes. He finds a certain irony in that green killed green, even though it should be red that kills green because red and green are opposites and can never touch without clashing because red is fire and fire burns green because green is him and red is her and he is evil and she is good and good is supposed to triumph over evil doesn't everyone know that?

Draco wonders how the narrator got his job when he clearly does not even know his basic Holy Rules of Plot.

He wonders if he is more powerful than the Dark Lord now because he killed the boy-man-hero the Dark Lord couldn't. It may not be true, but Draco tells himself it is. If he is not, then the girl-woman-ghost in his closet will die at some point in the future and he did not save her to have her die. He wonders why she is not dead anyways. He has not taken her wand away from her and he does not prevent her touching sharp objects. Her friends and family are dead. She knows this because Draco tells her this at the same time he tells her he would not prevent her from committing suicide. It will hurt him when she does decide to do so because he does still love her but it hurts him to see her like this as well and Draco doesn't think it will hurt any less or any more because she is dead to him now anyways.

But she does not die. One morning, Draco wakes up to find her still in his bed next to him. She is not sleeping. She is awake and still breathing and she meets his eyes for precisely three seconds before she blinks, climbs out of the bed and back into his closet.

III.

When Draco first sees her, he thinks she is pretty. Not gorgeous, like those French girls he meets during vacations, and not beautiful, like his mother. Just pretty. She pretty and kind of cute and not much else. She is smart, but he is smart too, and being smart does not always mean you win. She is brave, but Potter is brave too, and being brave sometimes gets you killed. She does not know how to flirt or lie or kiss or do makeup or style hair or the hundred and one other things all girls have imprinted in their genetic blueprint. She only knows how to keep promises, so when she tells Draco she will love him forever, he believes her, because by offering him the one thing she can do, she is offering him all of herself.

Draco as never been given a heart before and he imagines it to be a very very tender thing, so he holds it as carefully as he can in the palms of his hands and tries very very hard not to break it. It is a difficult thing for him to manage, because all he has ever been taught is how to break things, from human bones to human wills and that is probably all his life will come to. So Draco tries very very hard not to break this fragile heart because it is probably the only thing in his life anyone will ever give him to protect instead of to break and he wants to do this right because why god why he loves her.

He breaks it anyways.

-

"You could leave," she insists for the umpteenth time. "You could escape to some place like China or America. They'd never find you once you get out of Europe. Especially if you go to some place like Japan. I hear they're impossibly tight with homeland security there, in their magical community."

"Hermione," he knows his reasoning will be pushed aside and ignored but he will try anyways because he desperately wants her to understand goddamnit that he can't run and he can't hide because he'll only get caught and if he's caught then he will die and if he dies then he can't secretly try to protect her. "Hermione, if they're so tight about their security, how do you propose I get in in the first place?"

She stares at him, unwilling to admit such a flaw. "Or," she speaks loudly, "you could come to the Order and Dumbledore could protect you and –"

"Hermione," he interrupts. "Dumbledore's dead."

She stares at him and begins to cry.

IIX.

Occasionally, he holds meetings at his house. He does so in order to maintain a semblance of tradition, from back when the manor was home to a dozen different annual events that would always be the talk of the wizarding community. Whenever he does, he opens the closet door and tells her and asks her to not leave the closet until he returns to tell her she can. He does not lock her up in the closet. He leaves her with food enough for many meals, in case he dragged elsewhere, but that rarely happens. Usually, only one tray is empty when he comes back to tell her she is free to move around again.

One time, it takes five empty trays before he comes back. He opens the door while rubbing his eyes. He is tired. She is huddled in the corner, not moving. There is only one tray of food left. He opens his mouth to apologize but closes it before the word can leave his lips. He steps into the closet for the first time. She is shivering. He takes one of his many jackets off a hook in the actual closet part of his closet and drapes it over her shoulders. Draco walks out of the closet. He leaves the doors open.

The next morning he wakes up to her hand in his.

II.

Pansy pitches a fit when she finds out.

"You're fucking who?!"

"Granger," Blaise repeats the name with delight. "He's fucking Hermione fucking Granger."

"Draco!"

Draco snarls at them. He has a headache. Yesterday had been his eighteenth birthday and Hermione had somehow managed to come up with a bottle of very expensive vodka. Unfortunately, neither Hermione nor Draco are very intelligent while drunk and it does not occur to either of them that Blaise has access to the Head Girl and Boy's mutual common room and can therefore possibly walk in on them fucking on the couch. Blaise now wishes he does not have access to that particular common room but that does not prevent him from using this information against Draco. Blaise does not care that Draco is in love with Hermione because he assumes they will all die in this war anyways and why shouldn't Draco get pleasure where he can find it?

Pansy does not agree with Blaise. She still clings to the hope that they will all survive this nightmare with the same ferocity that a teenage girl clings to her romantic fantasies of true love. She accepts the mark on her arm for this hope and ruthlessly destroys the hopes of others for this hope. Pansy is terrified of Draco and Hermione's relationship because it might get Draco killed and Pansy does not want Draco to die. But Pansy is also Draco's friend and as Draco's friend, she does not scream for Draco to leave Hermione because in her heart of hearts, below her deepest hopes and darkest dreams, Pansy knows that Draco and Blaise and Hermione will all most likely die and why shouldn't Draco get pleasure where he can find it?

"Is she at least a good fuck?"

Draco's grin of gratitude at her understanding is all the answer Pansy needs. Deep within her heart of hearts, another hope is born, and this one involves a wedding in a world white with peace. Pansy wishes she had gotten an abortion. This is one hope that she knows she will never live to see grow up.

V.

Hermione,

If you're getting this letter, it means I am most certainly dead. It also means that Draco Malfoy killed me. I hope this is the case.

I love you. I loved Ginny but I loved you too. You were both everything to me. Ginny knew. She understood. But Ginny died, so that just left you and I can't let you die too.

We're losing this war. No. Let me rephrase.

We've lost this war.

I know you. You're arguing with me right now, wishing you had a quill and some parchment to write back and send it through to me somehow. You'll encourage me and tell me how there's still hope and there's still time and it's still possible that we'll win and Voldemort will die and we can all live happily ever after. And you'll try and tell me you love me at the same time and that you'll always be there for me. Am I right? I know I am.

I also know part of that is a lie. You do love me, I know, but you're in love with him. Did you really think you could fool me and Ron? We know you inside and out, Hermione Granger, and I think I knew you loved him before even you did. Every time you used homework as an excuse or faked tiredness to avoid going to Hogsmeade with us – we knew. We didn't ask though, because we wanted you to tell us yourself. We trusted you and we trusted him. I'm glad we did. You were so happy during those six months. Happier than you've ever been with me and Ron. He was in love with you too. I hope he's still in love with you.

By the time you read this letter, I will have talked to him and he will have agreed to save you, somehow, some way. There are others I could ask to protect you, but of them all, he is the most able to protect you, and that's all I want. For you to be protected. For you to be safe. And hopefully, for you to be loved.

Knowing you, you'll want to join me. You'll commit suicide and follow me and Ron and Ginny into the grave because you told us you'd be there for us always and you keep your promises. Well, I'm releasing you from your promise and I'm giving you another one to keep.

Promise me you'll live, Hermione. You'll be under Voldemort's rule with probably almost none of the freedom you've always had, but promise me you won't kill yourself. Because every moment you're alive is another moment of possibility. Every moment you keep living is another moment where you can maybe find happiness. Our lives all got cut short, so you can't cut yours short because you have to keep living our share too.

Later, you can come join us. We'll be waiting for you. But until then, live, Hermione Granger. For me. For us. For him.

Love,

Harry

I.

"I hate you," she tells him.

"You're lying," he tells her.

"Fuck you," she says.

"Now you're talking," he grins.

"That's not what I meant," she snaps.

"Maybe not consciously," he smirks.

"You're obnoxious," she grumbles.

"I'm in love with you," he whispers, the statement as intangible as its subject.

"I'm in love with you," she admits, the tone as hopeless as the war they are fighting.