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Warning: This is a dark story. Please do not read further if you think you can't handle it.

Chapter One

Then There Was Her

When a person felt death's breath there was supposed to be flashing images of their life. Draco Malfoy heard about that. He was experiencing that. No, it wasn't him. It was her. Hermione Granger. The long-molard Mudblood. The smart, frizzy-haired pain in the arse.

That had nothing to do with what was happening to him, did it? Seeing his life? Holidays, vacations, dotings, expectations, stress, and horrible images of the Dark Mark he couldn't shake.

Then there was her. Her in that train asking about a wretched toad, her laughing with her friends, her raising her hands countless of times, her blank expression when he called her a Mudblood, her petrified, her slapping him, her at the Yule Ball. Her... Her... Her... Sweet bitterness fell on him at those memories, fresh, and real.

To be fair he'd been feeling such at the sight of her being dragged into his Manor with her two friends. He couldn't identify her or her friends. It would mean their death. Not that it should matter, not that more dirty blood should make him care, but it was the thought of her blood. As for her friends... He couldn't do that to her. He didn't have a reason or a name for it - for why. It was inexcusable the way he was acting.

Her tortured screams echoed off the walls ranging in his ears five times the volume from her usual big mouth. She squirmed, and fought. She lied. She was annoyingly brave. She was killing him, but all he could do was watch her death, and die with her. He thought he would puke.

Draco clutched his wand and fought her friends when they arrived. As his face bled from the broken chandelier he watched them take her, and then it happened: He emptied his stomach over the carpet, his head still filled with her, his ears humming with her pain shooting through him.

They were tortured that night, a gleam in Voldemort's eye. It was strange... He didn't feel it. She was safe, and most importantly gone. He always knew she would be his pain, the spot in his chest where his heart would be.

There was Draco Malfoy. Then there was her.

That was the last time they had seen each other. It was a moment in Draco's life that he relived every day and every night, driving him to near insanity.

It was a grim moment of thousands, but it was the moment that would be in the spotlight, it was something he would ever forget. His dreams would forever put themselves aside for his nightmares, the dreams that were her, the nightmares that were her. There was not escaping... Her. The Gryffindor brain, the smart one, the beautiful one.

Slytherin and Gryffindor didn't belong. They didn't belong. It was fire and ice, and they didn't co-exist. The snake and the lion would fight to death, the snake would bite, the lion claw. One could be poisonous, the other could be stronger. He would poison Granger before he could live with her. She would be the death of him by ripping his heart out. But he was there already, on the edge of death. And where was she since that fateful night? Was she running like the others? Was she with Potter and the Weasley's? Was she safe?

Why did he ask himself senseless questions he couldn't answer? Why was he holding onto every straw that kept him towards a bleak, and unsure future? Oh, that was right... She was who he was living for. One more moment - a happy moment - that could erase that one. To see her smile and laugh once more, and maybe, just maybe, they could live together in harmony. Maybe love. A Slytherin and Gryffindor, a Pureblood and Muggleborn, a Malfoy and Granger, a snake and a lion.

There was Draco Malfoy... Then there was her... His lioness. Hermione Granger.

***

"Hermione! Hermione!"

Groggily she woke. The red luminous clock beside her read one o'clock. It was because of that time that she threw off her covers, and leapt out of bed. Harry yelling that early in the morning, or for that fact at all could only mean one thing.

Clad in her flowered nightgown she ran to the door just as it opened. Harry held onto the frame out of breath.

"They're here," he said grabbing her hand.

They joined the throng of people that were also running to the basement. In an unclouded part of her brain she registered all of them, every single one of the red-haired Weasley's, the skinny Lupin's, and crying baby Teddy Lupin in beautiful Fleur Weasley's arms. Ginny came beside her taking her other hand. She felt Ron's on her shoulder.

In the far corner of the musty basement they gathered. Harry took one glance at her and shrugged off his jacket. He wrapped it tight around her. "Keep warm," was all he said.

"Ron," she complained as he dragged her to the far back corner where Fleur was trying to hush Teddy.

"Stay here, Hermione."

She felt a sting of irritation at his protectiveness. "I can fight for myself!"

"I know that, but..."

"Stop trying to protect me!"

"You're the only Muggle-born here! After Harry they'll kill you!"

Ice flooded her. Did he think they would all die?

"He's right," Ginny said looking her straight on for a full three seconds before she turned to the door.

She accepted that she was fighting a losing battle and as they took ranks she stayed in the back like he told. Harry needlessly ordered him to stay in front of her. She wanted to argue, but there was too much commotion. Harry with Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, and Arthur took the front line, the women came next, Ginny staying very close to Harry though it looked like he was biting his tongue very hard to keep her in the back too. Hermione would have been alone if it weren't for Fleur and Teddy.

It became deathly quiet. Then there was a bang of the front door being slammed open, the windows shattering, men yelling, boots pounding the floor above them shaking the dirt loose from the rafters. They all held their breath as they waited.

She took a good look at her family. All set, and ready with their wands out like herself. She knew that the day would come. Ever since the uproar at the supposed last battle of Hogwarts, she knew that she would be standing there with them fighting. She prayed that there weren't many Death Eaters. She prayed that they would all survive.

The door burst opened and lights flashed in her eyes. Green, red, blue, gold, purple. Wizards and Witches slashing their wands through the air in intricate movements, fighting with everything they had.

Hermione tried desperately to get past Ron, but with one arm on her shoulder he managed to keep her back. She yelled into his ear, but he didn't hear her. She didn't know where he got the exerted strength, but it was the worst time to use it.

Teddy was wailing louder than ever, and Hermione felt like joining him as she watched her nightmare come true.

Arthur was the first to be killed, his glasses lopsided on his kind face, his wand taken from him, broken in a soundless snap by a faceless Death Eater.

Her eyes and mouth opened in horror at what the Wizards and Witches in the bone masks did next. It wasn't enough to simply kill them. Slashes was made into his body. Hermione thought she'd be sick at the skull designs they were causing into his flesh digging past the bone while their comrades took care of the rest of them. Her side was all falling down, one by one. Two by two. She was sick to her stomach, her wand nearly breaking in her grasp.

Fred, Bill, Charlie, George, Molly, Lupin, and Tonks. Blood splattered them, speckles on their snow white faces. She yelled at Ron to get out of her way, but he didn't answer, he only kept her in the corner, behind him as he fought ruthlessly.

More than anything she wanted to look away, but she didn't. Helplessly she watched as her family was brutally murdered, the images burning themselves into her eyes. She continued to try to get past Ron more frantic with each murder, running her nails down his arm raising the skin, but not causing enough pain than what they were already being induced to. She was able, with careful aim take two Death Eater's down, but it was too dangerous to do more from her position. It would be too easy to hit one of her family.

She couldn't locate her emotions running rampant inside of her. Shock didn't cover it. Neither did fear. She felt sickened, horrified, the emotional scarring setting in. She couldn't find her logic. She felt cold. Very, very cold, and alone. She simply watched, and in vain tried to get past her best friend.

Harry and Ginny were keeping up a good fight, but as Fleur saw her husband on the floor she ran forth. And if Hermione wished she hadn't seen one thing, it was the murder of baby Teddy Lupin. But she did see it, and that memory would haunt her, even in her death.

Ron shoved Hermione against the wall, his face frantic, and dotted red. He leaned into her covering her protectively. "Listen, love, listen to me closely."

She tasted salt and copper. She barely recognized that she was crying. That she was actually bawling, the tears mixing with blood. She nodded focusing every fiber of her being on what her best friend was saying, ignoring what was replaying in her mind. She had to focus, for Ron.

"You don't have a name. You have no history. You're unnamed."

She didn't understand what he was telling her. She went to ask but past his arm she saw Ginny go down. She gave a strangled cry and tried to go to her. Ron held her back his face averted from the cutting of his baby sister, the blood that was pooled blending with the others.

"NO!"

Harry was momentarily distracted. His visage a mix of horror, anger, and breaking sadness as he ran to stop his girlfriend's attack. And then in a flash of green, he fell too, right beside her, their hands coming together as though they were holding one another.

"HARRY!" She heard her voice, but it was far away, and a second later she wondered if she had yelled at all.

Ron was shaking. In a split second he turned to her. He raised his wand.

"Ron, no, don't!"

That was the last thing she saw. Ron's heartbreaking face. His last expression before he went to join his family.

A/N: I know the warning wasn't clear, it gave nothing away of the story which was its point, but it was a warning nonetheless.

The first recollection of Draco's was something I had written months back until it could find its place, ultimately finding it here.