AN: PLEASE READ: As often is the case these days, this story was inspired by a song. Specifically, U2's 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.' I suggest listening to the song while reading this story. You may have to put it on repeat due to the story's length. In any case, I ask (beg, plead, prostrate myself at your feet!) that you suspend belief for the duration of this fic, and enjoy it as it is. Thank you.

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Walk With Me

I have climbed the highest mountains

I have run through the fields

Only to be with you

Today begins like any other day.

"I've made you an omelette," she says.

I wrap my arms around her shoulders and pull her tight against me. She giggles and squirms when I kiss her neck.

"Thanks, but I've got to run. I'm already late."

She turns in my arms and gives me her signature little half-smile.

"And yet, you've got time enough to manhandle me."

"I'm not manhandling you." I smooth my hands up to her breasts and squeeze them. "I'm merely reaffirming to myself that you're my wife. It still amazes me that you made such an unwise decision to marry me."

"I know." She leans in and kisses me. "And they called me the brightest witch of my age."

I hold her tighter. "I love you."

She smiles. "I love you too."

There's no reason it should have been different.

After kissing her I should've grabbed my car keys and my jacket and made my way outside to the car we'd bought a month ago. As I was driving away and watching her wave me goodbye from the front door, I should've waved back. As I drove, I should've taken the quickest route that would have got me to work on time. I should've shown up to work. I should've been able to go home again. I should've been able to see her face again.

I should've…I should've…I should've…

The mantra of the unfortunate souls who have made the wrong decisions, who have taken the road that have led them to the least favourable consequences, who haven't the advantage of second-sight or omniscience, who are forced to suffer the agony of thoughts of what should have been but which did not come to be.

And I do grab my car keys and my jacket. And I do wave to her as I drive away. And I do take the highway…

But I do not get to work on time.

Because as I speed towards my destination, I neglect to consider the railway tracks up ahead. Obsessed with plans for the work day, I fail to notice the red flashing lights signalling an oncoming train.

I suppose I'm momentarily surprised when sudden and excruciating pain ricochets through my entire body, but I cannot be sure. The next instant is total and uncompromising darkness. There's no chance for me to fully realise what has occurred. And that might have been terribly disappointing to me had I consciousness to process it: to discover how incredibly changed one's life can be in the merest of nanoseconds. Hardly enough time to appreciate it.

Today begins like any other day.

Today my life begins like any other day.

And today, it ends differently.

I hear screaming.

Yet 'screaming' is far too humane a word for this sound that's filled with so much sorrow and torture and unbearable agony. And despite the fact the cry is muffled and distorted to my ears, its message of pain is still so very clear to me.

"Draco! Draco! Oh my God! Please, God! No! Draco! No!"

Yes…yes. I'm here. Why are you screaming? Why are you screaming my name?

I try to respond. I'm unable to.

I try to lift my hands in an attempt to comfort her, because I know it's her.

Why are you screaming?

I can't move. I can't…I…

I'm here…

I am at the very top of a mountain, and because I'm up so high, it's as if all I need to do is stand on my toes to be able to touch the light-blue fabric of the sky.

There are no other mountains besides the one I'm standing on, and below me is an endless expanse of green. An enormous forest advancing so far beyond the eye's reach that the vibrant greenness of the trees has darkened to blue-black. There is no variant colour in this forest. No remarkable yellow or auburn to draw one's attention to, and the trees are almost all of the same height, standing like stationery soldiers in this vast sylva.

How have I arrived here?

Why am I here?

Shouldn't I be…?

Where should I be?

I look to my left, I look to my right, I look all around me, and the view is still the same.

I drop to my knees on the top of this very high mountain.

"Why am I here?"

And as if to confuse me and further submerge me in this quicksand of loneliness, the forest answers me with my own echo: "Here…here…here..."

"Where should I be?"

"Be…be…be…" the forest taunts.

And I am driven to frustration, because something feels missing. There's this gap that exists within me, but I cannot pinpoint exactly where I'm sensing this lost piece, nor do I know what the lost piece is in the first place. It's awful knowing you don't know something you should know.

What is it? What have I lost? How will I find it? Will I ever find it again?

I don't know.

In this land, there is no concept of time. One moment it's night and the next, it's day. And still, the woodland remains unchanged.

I don't know for how long I've been held captive in this strange place, but I've grown sick of sitting on this mountain top.

I get up and begin making my way down to the foot of the mountain.

It's not easy, because the mountain is steep. On my way down, I realise I'm completely naked, but I've no sense of shame about this. I feel as though this is how it's supposed to be, that I've no use of coverings in this land. Slowly, cautiously, I step, ensuring my bare feet do not fall on sharp rocks jutting from the soil or wayward brambles lying innocently in the way.

The view is pleasantly different at the bottom of the mountain. The trees are not as densely clustered as I'd imagined, and there is an identifiable pathway that winds its way onwards around the tree trunks. I'm struck with brief hesitancy as to whether I should go forwards or remain just where I'd found myself. But then the urge to discover, to learn, to know my purpose for being here overcomes me. There is something I need to find, and albeit I don't know what it is yet, I certainly won't attain it if I'm stuck one place.

I follow the path.

"Hello."

I stop walking and turn left towards the direction of the voice.

There's no-one there.

I cast my eyes about, determined to locate the owner of this voice.

"I'm up here, silly."

I look up.

Perched on a dangerously thin tree branch is a woman with hair the colour of the bark of the tree she's inhabiting. Her hair is just as wild and thick as the leaves littering the tree, too.

The sight of her stirs something within me.

She looks…familiar.

But that is strange, for I've no recollection of ever meeting anybody, let alone someone that resembles her. The slate of my memory has been wiped vigorously clean. The furthest I can remember is my short stay on the mountain top.

"Hello," I reply.

She smiles, and then lengthens her body into a jump from her branch to the floor. Alarmed by the height she's jumped from and certain she's hurt herself, I go to her, but she stands tall in her nakedness, seemingly uninjured.

"Who are you?" she asks.

"I…I don't know," I say, nettled that she's forced me to appear ignorant of something as simple as my own identity. "What about you? Who are you?"

She cocks her head slightly to the side, one corner of her mouth curving upwards into a little half-smile. In the bits of afternoon light that has managed to penetrate the thick copse of this jungle, I can distinguish the amber of her irises, and the toffee-colour that surround them. She has very nice eyes. Warm; comforting.

"I call myself 'Hermione'. It's a lovely name, don't you think?"

"Hermione," I repeat, testing it and finding it a lovely name, indeed. Soft and pleasing to the tongue and ear. "Hermione."

She smiles some more and comes to stand closer to me.

"And since you don't know your name, let's invent one, then." She squints at me. "Neville?"

I scoff. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"It sounds…weak…for some reason."

"Hmm. How about Ronald?"

"What an ugly name."

"Harry, then?"

"Hearing that name annoys me. So, no."

"You really are quite fussy, Mr. No Name." She frowns at me. "Okay, what about…Andrew? Thimble? Buck? Seven? Drago? Thorn? Jack—"

"Wait – I like Draco."

"I didn't say Dra-co. I said Dra-go."

"Well, Dra-co sounds good enough for me, thanks."

"Draco," she says, forming her mouth carefully over my newly acquired name. And it sounds so gentle, the way she says it. So right. As if that's how my name should forever be spoken. Especially by her. Only by her.

Along this interminable pathway through the forest, Hermione accompanies me. Like me, she has no remembrance of how she's arrived here, nor why she's here in the first place. Like me, she is in search of something. And, like me, she does not know what she's looking for.

"So, if we've no memories, how d'you suppose we're able to communicate with each other? Why is it that we know how to speak these words, yet cannot remember how we've learnt them?" she asks.

"If I knew how to answer that, then I suppose I wouldn't be here in the first place."

"Well, it's worth considering," she replies, turning around to walk backwards. She smiles at me. This Hermione woman likes to smile.

"What's worth considering is how we're going to get out of this place."

"Why do you want to get out? Where do you want to go?"

"I…"

Where do I want to go? Somewhere. But I don't know exactly where. Within me, there's this thread that's pulling me towards an unknown destination. Somehow, I know this forest is not where I'm meant to be. I am to find something, but its existence lies beyond this gigantic spread of vegetation. And this thought frightens me, because I've no idea how long it will take before I get to where I need to be or if I'll ever get there.

Because what if we're not making any headway at all? What if this path's tail finishes at its head? Walking in circles in this strange place for eternity.

I stand still.

She stops walking backwards, and then comes and grasps my hands with hers. Our fingers intertwine. Again, the sense that I've met her somewhere before seizes me. I tighten my hold on her hands. Our gazes meet.

Quietly, as if she's read my mind, she says, "Don't worry, we'll get there."

I begin: "How do you—"

"We'll get there, and we'll find what we've been searching for all this time."

Day to night, night to day, the sky shifts, but it's useless to attempt to record how much time has elapsed since our arrival in this place.

And still we walk.

And still we search.

And still we do not discover.

Abruptly, the view of innumerable trees transforms to that of a field. Before us spans a broad, flat vista of yellow-green grass. There are occasional slopes that interrupt the perfect flatness of this new place (or is it the same?), and the pathway we've been following all along meanders in its usual twisting way across the plain, disappearing over one slope to re-emerge in a climb over another.

I wonder whether this change of scenery is a good sign or bad. If it's an indicator that we're closer to our goal, or if this is just a normal sequence in this bizarre world we've found ourselves.

After a short pause, Hermione continues walking, undeterred.

Still sceptical, I follow her.

She reaches her hand across to capture mine. A light breeze lifts her hair from her shoulders; a few strands curl themselves across her cheek. She gives me a reassuring smile. I smile back.

There's something about this woman that makes this journey infinitely better. I am loath to consider having not met her. Her presence is soothing and so very familiar, and when she smiles so sweetly at me, I feel like I want to…I want to…

She steps closer to me.

"Kiss me?"

I am stupefied, again, that she's aware of what I'm thinking.

"How do you—"

Standing on tiptoes, she reaches her face up and presses her lips innocently against mine.

In an almost inaudible whisper, I hear:

Draco, I love you so much. Please. Come…

For a moment, I feel light-headed and weak. The whispered voice stirs a strong sense of recognition within me. As tangible as wisps of smoke, a memory begins to coalesce in my mind's eye.

Eyes. Toffee. Amber.

Much like Hermione's.

So much like Hermione's.

Please, Draco. I can't…I don't think I can…

Hermione pulls away from me.

"Draco." Her breath lightly plays upon my lips. "What if we're looking for the same thing? Wouldn't that be nice?"

I wonder if we are the only ones here.

In all this time, we've yet to encounter another organism besides the trees in the previous forest and the grass in this field.

Remarkably, we do not grow hungry or thirsty in Strange Land, nor do we tire. So, with this in mind, we maintain our continuous trek across the expansive field. There are no indicative markers that we've made considerable progress. The further we walk, the further the edge where field meets sky appears to be.

And then, another scenery change occurs.

One step before, we were on a grassy field, a next step later we've arrived within Strange Land's strangest sequence yet.

The pathway we've been on has suddenly widened into a road made of a hard, slate-grey material. In the middle of this road are two parallel strips of yellow that follow the road's length. On either sides of the road are…structures of varying heights, ostensibly made out of the same slate-grey material as the road, but pock-marked with square-shaped holes consisting of…glass?

Windows.

Buildings.

A city.

These words solidify in my mind, and align themselves accordingly to this new sight.

Draco, I'm going to Muggle London today. Would you like me to get you something?

Stunned by the closeness of her voice – it's as if I've heard her in my head - I look at Hermione. She looks at me.

"What's Muggle London?" I ask.

"I don't know."

"So why would you say you're going there?"

"I haven't said anything, Draco."

"Yes you did. You said: 'Draco, I'm going to Muggle London today. Would you like me to get you something?'."

"I didn't," she persists. "I didn't say anything."

"Stop doing this!" I explode, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. "Stop doing these things! Why are you doing this?"

Frustrated, I release her and move as far away from her as I can. I don't know what's happening and why this is happening. Why am I seeing her eyes in my head? Why am I hearing her voice in my head? Why do I feel as though I've known her before? How is it that she knows what I'm thinking? In this world where no other human exists, why is she even here?

I've become so weary of ignorance. I'd like to have my questions answered.

"Draco."

I look at her. She looks at me.

"Who are you?"

She says nothing. Instead, she comes and envelops me in her arms. Her breasts, supple and full, press into my chest. I lay my face against the side of her neck and hold her tight against me. And even this embrace unearths glimpses of remembrance. Little snippets of myself holding her this same way, relishing the way her body fit so well against mine, as though we were one step short of melding together.

She sifts her fingers through my hair.

I lift my head again.

"Hermione, who are you?"

It's only when I feel her smoothing her fingers across my cheeks that I realise I've been crying.

Strange Land engages another transformation.

We are thrust amidst vegetation once more, on a valley's pathway between two enormous mountains on either side of us. Running parallel to the path is a shallow river, curving its way towards endlessness around the sloping foot of the mountain on our right.

Hermione veers off the path and into the river, pulling me along with her.

The water is not unpleasantly cold as it sloshes up my bare legs, and the further I wade into it, the more my body adjusts to the temperature. Beneath the soles of my feet, the riverbed is uneven and squishy and filled with tiny pebbles that poke into my flesh, but not hard enough to puncture it.

"Why are you carrying me—" I begin, but, without warning, she suddenly turns and kisses me.

Unlike the innocent peck she'd given me before, this kiss is hungry and demanding. She opens her mouth and forces her tongue between my lips, and I acquiesce. Once again, she crushes her front to mine, and encircles her hands around my neck.

It's as though, up until this time, some section of myself has been blinded, a sense dulled, because now I'm fully aware of how naked Hermione is in my arms. My flesh has acquired a sensitivity that threatens to overwhelm me with sensation at each slide of her body against mine.

Her tongue thrusting and curling with mine, she walks me backwards to where river meets land. Forcing her weight onto me, my knees buckle, and I find myself sitting along the edge of the river with her astride me, grinding herself intimately against my hips, the tiny hairs between her legs rasping torturously against my skin.

What is this feeling in the pit of my stomach, and why has my heartbeat escalated so rapidly? Why have I become unable to formulate coherent thought let alone voice it? I want to ask her why her lips are so sweet, and why the texture of her flesh is so malleable beneath my fingers, and why the heat of her skin suffocates me with an urgency to be as close to her as possible.

I want to…I want to…I want…

Her.

And I've wanted her before, in another life. And I've had her before, in another life. I know this.

"I…I've had…" I struggle to say, but she silences me with another kiss and reaches her hands between my legs and guides me into her moist warmth.

The river's current pushes idly against my calves. The wind curls her wild hair around our heads as she moves against me, over me, with me.

"Yes," she says, maybe in concurrence to what I'd been about to say.

I want to ask her why, upon feeling her fluttering around me and hearing her cry my name as her body stretched taut in my arms, for a moment, I had felt as though I'd found what I'd been looking for.

Strange Land returns us to the forest.

And at the very top of the same mountain I had left behind eons ago.

I scream aloud in irritation, furious that my previous theory of walking in circles has been made into reality.

"Arggh…arggh…arggh…" responds the forest, fueling my outrage.

"I think we're close," Hermione says.

"How do you know?"

She gives me a secretive smile. "I just do."

I scowl. "Granger, I'm really growing tired of your secretiveness. Either you tell me what—"

I freeze.

Granger?

Why have I called Hermione 'Granger'?

Hermione…Granger?

It's as if the seal on my memory has been partially broken, and with this breach, I'm besieged by a flood of images that are simultaneously unfamiliar and familiar to me. The visions shift rapidly before my mind's eye, but prevalent in all of them is a woman with wild hair, and eyes the colour of toffee and amber. Hermione. Hermione Granger.

The images are as weighty as physical stones being pelted against my brain. I clutch my head between my hands and squeeze my eyes shut to ward off the pain, to shut out her voice…to shut out the abject sorrow…

Draco, will you ever come back to me?

Please, I need you here…

Draco…Draco…please…come back…

Down on my knees I go, and for the second time, I shed tears. I clutch my head and cry in frustration, in hopelessness, in confusion, in anger. The memories are still bombarding me, and her voice persists in her pleas for my return. Come back where? Come back how? Isn't she here already? Isn't she standing right here next to me?

Who is she?

I shout: "Who are you?"

And calmly, she says: "Who are you?"

Who am I?

I am…Draco.

Draco. Draco. Draco…?

…Malfoy.

The seal is fully broken now, and my head explodes with pain unimaginable. Unable to support myself, my body falls to the floor as my identity is finally made known to me.

"…Draco, my son. You are…"

"…name is Draco Malfoy. You must be Potter…"

"…asking me on a date, Malfoy?"

"…you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, take Hermione Jean Granger as your lawful…"

As though she's speaking from a distance, Hermione says in her sweet, gentle voice:

"Wouldn't it be nice if we were searching for the same thing? Wouldn't it be nice if, all this time, we were searching for each other?"

I open my eyes, and that's odd, because I've no recollection of closing them.

Groaning, I blink slowly, feeling as though someone has taken a bat exuberantly to my head.

When I can finally keep my eyes open, the first thing that comes to my attention is that I'm no longer in the forest, but in a building, and that I'm lying on a bed. Judging by the curtains on my left, the strange plastic string jutting from my forearm and curling up to a strange bag suspended by hooks and that clinical, nausea-inducing odour, I'm in a hospital.

Another transformation of Strange Land, I suppose. But where is—

"D-Draco?"

I turn my head to the right.

Ah, there she is. Hermione.

But she has the oddest expression on her face. Her eyes are so wide open, it's as if they're just about ready to pop out of her head and roll away beneath my bed. She is slack-jawed as well, and she's sitting so rigidly, I find it difficult not to liken her to a mannequin.

Slowly, stiffly, she rises to her feet.

"Draco…y-you're…you're…awake," she chokes out, her eyes still wide even as tears begins to fall from them.

I frown at her. "And you're not naked."

She laughs even though she's crying. "If you want me naked, that's not a problem. I'll walk naked forever if it means you'll stay awake."

And she throws herself on me, covering me with desperate kisses, gripping me so hard against her that I struggle to breathe. In my ears she whispers that she loves me, sifting her fingers through my hair, continuously touching me as though each graze of her hand against my skin resuscitates her over and over again.

Four years she says she's lost me for. Four years she says she's waited.

Four years she says she's suffered my absence. Four years she says she's endured hope.

Four years she says she's been searching for me, waiting for my return.

And I tell her how strange that is, because for those four years, she's been with me all this time.

fin

AN: So, I feel (know!) I must explain the concept of this story. It has heavy influences from Kate Atkinson and Dean Koontz. I tried for 'abstract' (I think), but it's going to take me some serious work to perfect that. Anyway, I'm sure most of you must have realised that Draco was in a coma for four years. What you might not know is that, in his comatose state, his brain created 'Strange Land' and Hermione to help him cope, due to the fact that he suffered temporary Retrograde Amnesia (Wikipedia!) within his coma as well (OMGZ! Inception!). Ahem. These are some tough subjects that I've thoroughly glossed over/altered in this fic. That's why I asked at the beginning you absolutely suspend belief and realism. Still, I hope you enjoyed it, nonetheless. Thank you for reading! :)