I want my disguise back, she thought, moments before Draco came to stand behind her. I don't want to be Hermione anymore.

She had already stopped looking at the face that reflected back at her when he appeared, no longer caring for the weak, ordinary face that she saw there. How was anyone to find any real beauty in it? They would find no joy or sorrow written there; such fierce extremities did not light her face or cast it in shadow. And for all the magic they wielded, it was not in their power to read her eyes, to know the secrets of her soul just because they fancied themselves a friend. Those who shared them hadn't found them in one shattered look or one mysterious smile. They knew because she allowed it. They knew because they had lived it.

So what would a stranger think, to look at her? They would know something, but not everything. They would not know that she had taken life and saved it, that she laughed despite knowing the ache of death, that she knew the difference between giving up and giving in and teetered silently on the divide.

But ever since Draco Malfoy had carved his way back into her life, she had taken one step too far. She remembered the art gallery, his dagger resting against her heart, and his words, more lethal than his weapon.

And God, for that one second she had given up. For the first time since the war had started, she had wanted it to end. Before then it hadn't been about the causalities, the deaths, the months that had dragged on into years. It had been about winning. They were going to fight for as long as it took them to win. That was what they had fought for. That was not to say that the years of bloodshed didn't matter. They did. But every drop spilt had signified a step closer to their goal.

When Ginny had died, when Neville, George and her parents had followed, there had been no giving up. Instead their determination had grown stronger, their need to win and reclaim the tatters of their lives and learn to live again in a world where death wasn't waiting around every corner the only thing that mattered. It was hard and painful and sometimes, just sometimes, it was unbearable. But giving up meant defeat. Giving up meant their death sentence.

So why, when Hermione looked in the mirror at the boy behind her, did she want to give in?

Because I've seen what you've seen. Voldemort's armies lining the streets, muggles dying at their feet and half-bloods chained and gagged like animals. Is this what we're fighting for, she thought sadly. Will this happen, no matter how hard we fight?

She closed her eyes, unable to look any longer, afraid of what she might see there. Would there be grief in that gaze, or cold, hard apathy? Which would hurt more?

She stepped back blindly and felt his hands come up to steady her.

You're real, she realised, as if his reflection in the mirror had been nothing but a ghost haunting her thoughts. But he was here, the monster who was not a monster, the boy who was not a boy, but something else entirely.

"What are you?" she whispered, unable to move away. Not who are you, but what. There were no “who’s” in war. There were only the villains, the heroes, the dead and the living.

"Does it matter?" His hands fell away as he moved back and Hermione turned to look at him. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but there was nothing.

"This is what I do, Hermione," he said softly, his tone one of steely resolve. "I kill."

He stared at her with cold, indifferent eyes, daring her to deny it. She didn't. She simply nodded and stepped past him, head bowed. She wanted to turn back, to see him shed tears for his dead friend, to let her comfort him and shed a few of her own and whisper empty, pointless platitudes until she felt better. But she couldn't. It wasn't her right to grieve for Ann-Marie, not her place to grieve for him.

Did the monster feel nothing? Did the boy? Who was truly the killer here, or were they both one and the same? Did that moment of hesitation before he slid the dagger home mean anything or nothing?

Why did she even care? After all, what did it matter to her? What difference would it make he felt something, or nothing?

None. None at all.

And yet she still turned back.

"Draco--"

But she got no further than that, silenced by the boy's poisonous gaze.

"Spare me whatever platitudes you feel I need to hear," he hissed, and Hermione could almost feel the thrum of anger beating under his skin. She stepped towards him warily, calmly, eyes trained on his as if he were a dangerous animal.

He is, she thought. Maybe not an animal, but dangerous all the same.

"You think you can save me, Granger?" he said in a low voice, moving towards her. "You think I need saving?"

"Why are you here?" she asked.

She saw the flicker of confusion pass over his features before it was gone. Her question had thrown him.

"In case you hadn't noticed, I live here."

"No." She took another step towards him. "I mean why did you come looking for me?" Another. "To see if I'm okay?" And another. She paused in front of him, watching. "So you could somehow prove to me that you don't care?"

He snarled at her, one hand seizing her around the throat and throwing her against the bedroom wall. "You think I don't care?"

She gasped in shock at the impact. Her hands came up to claw at his, but suddenly the hand tightened, then loosened, finally falling away as whatever anger had driven him fled his body, leaving him weak and shaking. He settled down on to the bed and bowed his head.

"I told you once that there were only a few I cared about," he whispered after a long moment. "She was one of the few. And she betrayed me. Maybe she didn't have a choice, but neither did I. I did what I had to do. Because that's who I am, Hermione." He lifted his steely gaze to stare at her, driving his point home.

He stood then, and moved to where she still stood against the wall. Her breath hitched in her chest as he brought his hand up and curled it around her neck, thumb brushing against her throat.

"We're both killers," he stated calmly, his gaze unwavering as he spoke. "The only difference between us is the reason why. You're fighting for a cause. I'm not. Does it make it easier? Maybe. But which one of us here needs saving, Hermione?"

She stared up at him, not trusting herself to speak. What would she say? Would she agree and finally admit that, yes, God, it was unbearable sometimes when you were forced to come face to face with who you really were. Because she was a killer, too. And it didn't matter that she only killed the bad guys, because it didn't change the fact that sometimes she dreamt of that last harrowing look before she struck them down. Some of them were children, barely out of school; kids like her who had grown up too fast and made irrevocable choices that had placed them on the wrong side of the war. Were they really bad guys? Some of them, maybe. But she didn't get to choose who lived or died; that power had been taken out of her hands the moment the war had begun and the Ministry had turned them into warriors.

But in the end it came down to the simplest question: did she regret her choice?

No. Things could have been different, but they're not. I chose this life because it was right for me.

"I don't need saving," she finally said, and felt a comforting sort of certainty take over. No, she didn't need saving. She was who she was and she had chosen this life because of it.

But don't ever expect me to understand it, she thought. Death is death and it's everything I hate. If I loved it like you, I wouldn't be fighting this war. And don't expect me to hurt for you because she's dead. You killed her because it's all you know, and she died knowing that. She died loving you, never once hating you for it. And maybe I don't hate you, but I don't like who you are, what you do, the lives you take. I kill because I have to. You kill because you choose to and now you know nothing else.

And yet, despite herself, she closed her eyes to his touch, something inside of her tightening painfully, beautifully, at the feel of his fingers caressing the back of her neck.

You're so beautiful, her mind whispered, unable to grasp why and how someone like him could represent everything she hated about their world. Death never came in pretty packages in the war. It was ugly and raw and vulgar. But the man standing in front of her was none of these things; from the smooth lines of his face, to the subtleness of his strength and the gentleness of his fingers, he was a contradiction. He taunted, threatened, and killed, all with a quiet, graceful intensity that scared her more than his anger.

And what was worse? Knowing that this monster, this boy, possessed some twisted sense of honour that she would never be able to understand. She had seen it with her own two eyes, when Lavender could have easily become another dead body instead of deadweight in her arms, when Ann-Marie had known there was no other way but death and she had begged him, please, please, make it quick, and he had, sliding the dagger in so sweetly, piercing the heart of his lover, his betrayer, so swiftly that she died with not even a whimper on her lips.

It had been so much worse, that silence, and tears trickled helplessly from her eyes at the memory. You shouldn't have died. But you did, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry you loved him.

"Open your eyes," Draco said huskily, and she shook her head and turned her face away, unable to look at him, unwilling to see whatever it was Ann-Marie had seen in him.

He stepped closer, one hand brushing down so his thumb rested in the hollow beneath her ear. The other came up to press against the wall and he buried his head in her neck and repeated, "Open your eyes," in a low, pleading whisper.

She did and it was a mistake. She knew that even before her kissed her, slanting his mouth over hers and tasting her tentatively, as if unable to believe that it was her he was kissing and nobody else.

Unable, or unwilling, she thought sadly, and kissed him back.

---

He only kissed her once and Hermione knew, somehow, that it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with a girl that was no longer his. But it was enough; long and white-hot and intense, as if he were begging for her to understand, to forgive him for making her hurt.

It doesn't hurt because I love you, she thought, as they shed their clothes and fell on to the bed without speaking. It hurts because I don't hate you.

But any thoughts past that were distant. There was nothing but the feel of skin against skin, fingers tracing the contours of her body, sliding down and in until she was nothing more than a writhing heap of limbs on the bed. And then there was the sound of her panties tearing and a pressure between her legs that was so exquisite she forgot to breathe.

And it was everything she had expected it to be. It was war and beauty and in the end it left her raw and breathless.

Afterwards, when the world had shattered and rebuilt itself behind the darkness of her eyelids and they lay curled together, Draco whispered, "I hate him."

And she whispered back, "I know."

---

She left before dawn. Half an hour before, as Draco slept an exhausted sleep, she made copies of the documents they had managed to salvage that night and owled them to the remaining members of the Order. Then she slipped out, disguise in place, and never once looked back.

They were done. He had nothing else to offer her and she had nothing else to offer him. In the space of one night, Draco had lost a lover and she had gained pivotal information that would help the Order fight a once-hopeless war. It didn't seem a fair trade.

She arrived at Harry's just as the sun was beginning to crest over the horizon. He was already awake -- or had not yet slept -- when she Apparated into his living room and found him nestled into the corner of his couch, loose pieces of parchment scattered around him. She recognised the documents she had sent not even an hour before, clutched in his hand as he read over them with eyes ringed with permanent shadows.

He didn't even look at her when she appeared in front of his fireplace, and she waited patiently for a reaction, eager to catch even the slightest glimpse of hope or triumph in his eyes.

But when he did look at her there was nothing but a dull resignation in his eyes and Hermione nearly collapsed to her knees right there. She had yet to study the documents they had managed retrieve, only having skimmed a scant few of the pages, but she had prayed (God, how she had prayed) that there would be something within them that would vanish that vacant, defeated look in her friend's eyes.

Because up until now they had been losing. Voldemort's army was growing stronger and their search for the remaining horcruxes had led to nothing but dead-ends, one after the other. Soon they had begun to believe that the only way for it to end would be for Harry to confront Voldemort directly, to pit himself against the Dark Lord, strength against strength, and pray that, as the Prophecy had foretold, Harry would be the victor.

But Voldemort couldn't be found. While his minions were left to fight his war, he was rumoured to be in hiding, and despite the best efforts of the Order and their allies, who had spent months, nearly years, scouring the globe, interrogating Death Eaters and threatening the lives of his weak-willed followers for information, they failed to discover his whereabouts.

And so it was a stalemate and what followed was a year of waiting. There was nothing more to be done except prepare for Voldemort's inevitable attack. They had all assumed that the Dark Lord would strike eventually, and that Harry would undoubtedly be the target. But while their friends died in battle or disappeared in the dark of the night, Harry remained safe, as did Ron, as did Hermione. In fact, Voldemort himself had not made a move against his enemy in over two years.

It was therefore no surprise that their hopes of a final confrontation had eventually dwindled and died.

But now... now they had something in which to fight with. Hermione was almost certain that something within those pages would lead them to Voldemort. And then... well then they would fight. Not just Harry, but all of them. They would fight and they would win. They had to. They had to.

And yet there was no hope in Harry's gaze as he stared at her. There wasn't even the barest hint of the bloodlust that often lingered there, the thirst for revenge that had begun with the death of his wife, Ginny, and grown in tandem with every sacrifice thereafter. It seemed, after years of fighting, Harry Potter had finally given up.

"Harry... " she whispered, tears burning her eyes, blurring her vision. "Harry, please." She was begging, begging him not as her friend, her classmate, her war companion, but as Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, the one destined to save them all. And it was selfish of her, so completely selfish, but she was so tired, so close to giving up, that she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't do it alone.

But he didn't answer, just continued to stare blindingly, and Hermione finally gave in and crumpled to the floor. She cried, loud and hard, for everything she had lost, and then harder still because she was being so selfish and so damn self-centred. Because they had all lost something. Not just her. Everyone.

And behind the darkness of her eyelids she saw Ron, with his broken smile and broken eyes, and she remembered the night before last when they were laid together in her bed, and he had sobbed into her neck because he missed his sister and his brother and his dad so badly, and he was so tired of being strong, so tired of trying to protect his family and failing, so fuckin' tired of fighting this war.

She hadn't seen him since but she knew where he would be; the same place he always went in the aftermath of his breakdowns. He would walk for hours in the beginning, but his feet would always carry him to the graveyard, and then on to Luna Lovegood's house because she lived nearby, and there he would spend a few days warming her bed with his anger.

That was Ron's thing. Afterwards he would appear in her bedroom and take her out for dinner or to a movie, and that was his way of apologising, though he knew there was little need for it, because they all had their moments when it all became a little too much to bear, and there was no one to blame but the one that cared least for their tragedies.

But not one of them -- not one -- had given up. Until now. And she realised then how much they depended on each other to keep themselves fighting. Without Harry, they were useless. She knew that, and she knew Harry knew that.

"Hermione."

Harry's voice. Harry calling her name. She knew this and yet she found she couldn't answer.

"Hermione," he repeated, softer this time, because now he was knelt in front of her, strong hands lifting her face up, long fingers wiping her eyes dry. "Hermione, I have to go now," he said regretfully and smiled sadly as Hermione erratically shook her head. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I don't want to leave, but there's something I have to do." He paused, swallowed heavily, and then whispered in a voice thick with tears, "Please forgive me, Hermione. Please forgive me for leaving you."

"Harry... " she said in a broken whisper as he kissed her forehead and then rose to his feet. "Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry... "

She was still crying his name long after he was gone.

---

They said it was quick.

They said it was painless.

They were liars.

There had been nothing quick or painless about it, not for them, not for the ones Harry had left behind.

She hated him a little, for not telling her. And then she felt ashamed for hating him, which made her angry, and she found when she was angry, it was much easier to hate him. It was a vicious cycle.

She sat down to study the scrolls three days later, even though she knew what she would find. And it was all right there. Harry's destiny scrawled across old parchment. Harry's destiny and Voldemort's destiny irrevocably linked from the moment the first curse was cast. It was his legacy to triumph over Voldemort, to die alongside him, because that was how the prophecy went. Nothing short of a selfless sacrifice would be enough, and Hermione sort of knew, in the back of her mind, that Harry had already known this, had known it for years.

And she knew now, why Voldemort fled, why he hid. Why the three of them had remained safe. Because he knew that to kill Harry was to kill himself. And he would not allow that to happen. If Harry had the knowledge that Voldemort possessed, he would no doubt sacrifice himself for the greater good. So Voldemort hid it, so Harry would never know how simple it was. And the only thing for Voldemort to do was wait until the war was won, until Harry had nothing and no one, until he was forced to bend to the Dark Lord’s will.

But he had waited too long and invested his trust in the wrong Malfoy. The scrolls where found, Voldemort's location revealed, and now... now Harry was dead.

And Draco had known.

She stared blankly at him now, seated sideways on her window seat in her bedroom, long legs sprawled in front of him with one bent at the knee. He was gazing nonchalantly out of the window, as he had been doing when she first came in, and had yet to acknowledge her presence.

It was unexpected visit, and an unwelcome one at that.

"If you're here to tell me how it was all worth it in the end, I don't want to hear it," Hermione said with deadly softness as she moved towards her bed and began to undress for the night.

"No," he said, rising from his seat and moving towards her. He paused mere inches from her and with a gentle hand he brushed her hair from her neck and placed a hot, feather-light kiss against her pulse point. He lifted his head to stare at her solemnly. "I'm here to tell you I'm leaving."

Hermione swallowed heavily and nodded. She figured he'd be leaving soon. It wasn't safe for him here. Voldemort might have been dead but his followers were not. She knew there were some out there who wanted to see Draco Malfoy, the ultimate traitor, dead. And the Order no longer had the men or the resources to protect him. Not yet.

"Will you be back?"

And she would never know the reason she asked. This was the boy she had hated for years, the boy who had threatened, hurt her, killed his own lover in cold blood and sent Harry to his death. And she wanted to know when he would return, when he would be back in her life again.

But the boy just smiled at her question and said nothing. Instead he leant forward, brushing his lips against the shell of her ear, and whispered, "Soon."

And then he was gone.

---