"Quickly Draco!" Hermione bellows up the stairs. "If we don't leave now, we'll miss the first showing!" She hears Draco release a long groan and grins. "Don't complain, I won this fair and square with our game! Besides, it's not like I've sentenced you to death." Then again, he still never warmed up to her cousin Jeremy, so she supposes that two hours in a theater with him isn't exactly Draco's idea of fun.

"This is just as bad," Draco moans miserably.

Snickering to herself, Hermione gives him a five minute warning and goes to sit on her sofa. She's only just settled when a chill seems to blow through the room, raising goosebumps on her arms. Hermione sits up straighter, looking around for an open window or door, but everything is closed tight. Dread thunders through her, jagged and cold.

She bolts to her feet and dashes for the stairs, only now realizing how silent it has become up there.

"Draco, are you alright?" It takes effort to keep from shouting, a deep breath and a will to shove aside her growing panic. When she receives no response, though, that panic comes swelling back with a vengeance. "What happened? Are you hurt? Did something-" her words die on her lips as she throws own his door to see him sat at his desk. "Oh thank Merlin," she breathes, nearly collapsing in her relief.

He stands abruptly and comes to her, placing his hands on her shoulders to keep her steady. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen Voldemort resurrected," he says, eyeing her searchingly.

Hermione leans into his touch and takes a calming breath before giving a slight nod of her head. "I'm fine," she manages, a bit strangled.

"Are you sure?" His brow is furrowed in disbelief and his eyes are flickering to the door across the hall, like he intends to shepard her to her room for a lie down.

With a final breath, Hermione says, "I'm sure. I just had a bad feeling. You must understand, the war taught me to follow those sorts of instincts." She peers up at him through her lashes, timid and worried he might think her crazy.

He smiles and she realizes a half beat later that his thumb is brushing soothingly along the nape of her neck. She can't find it in herself to mind the touch. "I understand. I'm the same way."

She intends to respond, but the door bell rings, jarring them both out of the moment. Draco jerks away from her like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't and Hermione stumbles back a few steps before regaining her bearings.

"Stay here," she demands after a moment. "I'm going to tell them to come back another time. You just keep getting ready."

"Right, of course," he agrees, turning away to face his closet.

Hermione lingers for a moment, worrying her lip, before she leaves the room and runs down to the front door. She adjusts her disheveled appearance and has just put her hand on the knob when the bell rings again, this time with three quick jabs of the button.

Scowling at the impatience, Hermione yanks open the door. "No need to be so impatient. It's very impolite to ring the bell so many-" For the second time in less than five minutes, her words die away. Her body seem to go completely offline and the only comprehensible thought she can create while staring into those dreadfully familiar blue eyes is, that explains the bad feeling I had.

She's faintly aware of her mouth dropping open and is mostly sure that her eyes must be the size of saucers now. Somewhere in her foggy head, her brain seems to process the danger she might be in and she can feel her fingers deftly clutch around the slim wood of her wand. She's aware enough to not pull it out.

"Hermione," the man starts in that awful voice of his. He stops when he catches sight of the twitch in her hand, like the draw back of the ocean before the tsunami washes over the land.

Hermione comes back to life and her hand swings around, crashing squarely against his cheek. He stumbles back and nearly falls, had it not been for the railing on her porch. His arm shoots out and he steadies himself. When he presses his hand to his now crimson cheek and opens his mouth like he is going to speak, Hermione stomps forward.

No longer caring to keep it secret, she whips her wand from her pocket so fast she swears she can hear the sound of it slicing through the air. The tip pricks into his neck, firm but not hard enough to damage the tender flesh there. He gulps.

"What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing here?" She seethes, gripping her wand tighter. For a fleeting moment, she pictures the wood splintering in her fist and forces herself to loosen her hold just a fraction.

The man pinned back against the railing examines her, eyes like a scalpel and she the frog, and then he just laughs. "You don't have it in you to actually hurt me," he jeers. "You are and always will be the same boring girl, and that girl could never hurt an old friend."

"Do not test me, Ronald," she snarls, pressing her wand harder against his throat. Ron gasps with the pressure and the smallest trace of fear appears in his eyes. "I've know you for years, yes, but your status as a friend was forgotten long ago."

Ron swallows hard, she can feel it through her wand. His eyes flick over her, but he finds nothing this time. She smirks sharply.

"You're going to tell me why you're here before I do something I might eventually come to regret," she commands. His eyes narrow at her tone and, thinking that she might not notice, he grabs for his own wand. "Don't even consider it. The moment your fingers touch your wand, I'll blast you off my porch," she warns.

He freezes, brows raising in shock. He must see the cold resolution in her eyes, though, because his hand slowly drops back down to hand loosely at his side.

"Good boy," she sneers condescendingly.

His face flushes dark but there is nothing he can do. Considering his options, Ron sighs and gives in to her request.

"I came because I needed to speak to you," Ron says with a surprising amount of levelness.

It takes Hermione nearly a full minute to realize he seems to be speaking the truth and, when she does, barks out a laugh.

"You're an actual fool," she chortles, dark and taunting. "Did you honestly think that, after all you've done, I would sit and have a pleasant chat with you?"

"I didn't come for idle chat. I came to remind you not to tell anyone else about what happened on the wedding day," he snaps, tone low and dangerous.

In her anger-clouded mind, Hermione doesn't immediately catch the implication of his words, but when she does, she feels like she could take an entire army of deatheaters alone and come out on top.

"Did you threaten me?" She growls, stepping closer. He doesn't speak, just stares passively back at her. "How dare you threaten me!" Years of hurt and rage swell forward and she slams her free hand against his nose.

Ron howls and falls away from her wand, landing in an ungraceful heap on the ground. Blood gushes from his nose, spilling down his freckled face and the front of his shirt. He clutches his hand around his nose, tipping his head back to stop the flow.

"You've absolutely no right to come to my home and stand there and tell me what to do! You're not a part of my life, or anyone else's, not after what you've done. If you think any differently, then you're even more stupid than I ever imagined!" She towers over him, spitting the words out with venom. Her voice has raised to a howling yell and she's grateful that no houses are close enough to hear the spectacle she's making.

Ron has managed to staunch the blood, though it stains his skin and creates a morbid image that would make Hermione shiver if she weren't so fueled by her anger. "Who do you think you are, hitting me like that?" His words are a bit garbled and slurred, probably from the hit to the nose. He still manages to stagger to his feet and yank out his wand, aiming it at her chest.

Though her safety is very much in danger, she feels no fear and only laughs in his face. A low, spiteful chuckle that surprises even herself.

"I'll do as I please," she says, looking down her nose at him. "You're a horrible, disgusting man and you should have never come back. Your own sister wants nothing to do with you now." Hermione glares at her, aiming her own wand and preparing to fire a hex his way before he has the chance to do it to her. She would have, had her housemate not appeared.

"Hermione, is everything alright? I heard arguing." Draco pauses in the doorway, absorbing the scene laid out in front of him. It must be a strange sight: Two people, one already covered in blood, both with their wands poised to shoot a spell and curses on the tips of their tongues. If he finds it odd, though, he does not show it.

The concern on his face slips away, replaced with cold hatred and steely eyes, the likes of which Hermione has only seen a handful of times. Had it been directed at her, Hermione is sure her confidence would have wavered.

Draco takes a threatening step towards the gaping man in front of Hermione and snarls, "what are you doing here?"

"Go back inside, Draco. I've got this under control," Hermione assures, voice strained. Her gaze flickers between Ronald, who's currently turning several different shades of crimson, and Draco, who is all cool resolve. She worries over Ron's reaction, knowing it won't be good, and having Draco around is too much to focus on.

Unsurprisingly, Draco doesn't listen. He remains rooted to his spot, glaring darkly at the unwanted guest.

"What am I doing here?" Ron's voice goes up an octave and Hermione would laugh in a situation with less tension. "What in Merlin's name are you doing here?" He takes a jerking step towards Draco, but Hermione maneuvers to stay between the two. At least Ron's wand has dropped down again.

"Leave Draco out of this," Hermione hisses, poking Ron's chest with her wand to get his attention back on her. "This is between you and I. He plays no part.

Ron barely glances her way, but when he speaks, it's to address her. "It's Draco now, is it?" He leers at Draco, lips curling back from his teeth in a horrid imitation of a sneer. "I bet you're real close with him, aren't you. Did you finally find someone who can tolerate your annoying blabber? No...I'll bet you're simply his latest conquest," Ron spits cruelly.

"Don't speak about her that way," Draco grounds out, startling Hermione with his willingness to come to her defense. She forgets it quickly, though, as her eyes catch on something else. "She's more intelligent than you'll ever be. You've put her through so much misery and pain that you should be begging for forgiveness before she decides to ruin your sad existence."

His words don't process because Hermione's attention is solely on the hand clenching around a slim piece of wood.

Time seems to slow down as the wand is raised to chest level again. Hermione tries to move, to dive out of her spot, but she isn't nearly fast enough. The words have already left his mouth before Hermione even manages to get her legs bent to jump.

The bright beam of light bursts from the tip of his wand and all Hermione can do is close her eyes to await the inevitable blow. He was too close for the spell to miss. Hermione waits, and waits, and nothing comes.

For just a moment, she thinks she might have imagined it and when she opens her eyes, everything will be perfectly alright. She would open her eyes and he'd still be standing there, arguing with Draco, and she could send him away with a simple flick of her wand.

His voice brings her back to reality.

"Sectumsempra!" He howls, enraged that the first had missed. This one doesn't hit her either.

Realizing that something is wrong, Hermione blinks her eyes open. She looks around, wondering why the spell isn't ripping through her the way Harry had described it would all those years ago. It's only then that she catches a frightening sight.

The vicious gleam of satisfaction in Ron's eyes and the angle at which he's still holding the wand. It occurs to her that the spell hadn't been intended for her. If it hadn't hit her though, then there was only one other person it could have hit.

A scream of agony, loud and piercing and decidedly not her own, affirms her suspicions

"Draco," Hermione breathes, whirling around and stumbling towards him. She sinks to her knees at his side. Somewhere behind her, she hears steps thudding away, but caring about Ron is far from mind.

Draco doesn't scream again, much to her shock. The first seems to have only slipped out with the suddenness of the spell.

He writhes on the wooden planks of the porch, though. His fingers scrabble for some purchase, clutching and releasing her leg several times before he twists and curls around his middle. The brief glimpses she has of his face as his head jolts around aren't pleasant. Teeth barred to hold back screams, eyes rolling around unseeingly. His pale skin is stark against the dark crimson that is pouring from his chest and leaking through the cracks in the porch.

The control he has is tenuous at best and slipping fast as time goes on. His legs thrash wildly, nearly kicking her several times. She's heard before, when Harry was loose-lipped from alcohol and reliving past horrors, the gory details of Sectumsempra. She thought she would be prepared if she was ever faced with it in reality, but here and now, she knows nothing could have prepared her for it.

Her entire mind shuts down as she witnesses what's happening, something that so rarely happens, and she works solely on autopilot.

"Hold on for just a few minutes," she hears herself say as if at a great distance. "I'm taking you to get some help."

Draco sucks in a short breath through his teeth, something she takes to be a response, before slamming his lips back together to keep any other sounds in.

Hermione nods and lifts her wand then wraps her free hand around a terrifyingly cold wrist. Ignoring the dangers that apparating could create to his already poor condition, she twists on the spot and pictures the building she needs.

The sensation of being dragged through a small tube hardly bothers her with her attention on the boy who is so close to death already. The very moment her feet touch the floor of St. Mungos, she calls for a healer.

Pausing only briefly to assure that Draco hadn't been splinched, she runs for the nearest mediwitch in sight and drags her back to Draco. He's gone frighteningly still and she barely notices the woman cast the counter-curse to sectumsempra, something that Harry had so helpfully shared with the world but had apparently fled Hermione's mind when she needed it most.

Draco doesn't writhe or gasp or even appear to breath. The skin not covered in blood is no ghostly white. The blood is pooled around his body even with the little time that they've been here, a red rug on the tiled floors of the hospital. His eyes, open and staring up at the ceiling overhead, are lifeless and dark.

In every sense of the word, Draco truly appears to be dead.

That moment, that realization, is what finally drags Hermione out of her trance-like state and into full hysteria. Her legs tremble and give out and she results to shaking his limp form.

"Please," she cries, clutching him tight. "Please, Merlin, I'm begging you, don't be dead. You can't be dead. Say something, Draco, Please!" He says nothing, and Hermione knows. She just knows that she's talking to a corpse, but she has to try. "DO SOMETHING!" she screams to the mediwitch. "FIX HIM, BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE!"

"Ma'am, please, the healers are coming," the woman interrupts. She's looking down at the scene before her with sympathy, but death is nothing new to her, Hermione can see. It's nothing new to anyone anymore.

Hermione doesn't know it then, and most likely will never come to know, but tears are streaking down her cheeks. They drip off her chin and fall into the blood she's kneeling in.

She chokes out, "please! This wasn't supposed to happen. He can't die, it wasn't supposed to happen like this. I should never have let this happen."

All common sense has abandoned her and the only thing left his a senseless being who can do nothing but call on others for help. She'd be appalled with herself.

Hermione grapples for his hand, squeezing the stiffening digits between both her palms. "Please, please, please, please," she repeats over and over like a mantra. Like if she says it enough, it will change the course of the day.

Voices are cutting over her, and someone is dragging her away from the body. They leave her on the floor, whisking the body away to the recesses of the hospital where they will officially pronounce him dead.

Hermione stares blankly after them, silenced now, attempting to find the strength the follow. She has nothing left to give, though. She doesn't want to leave him alone, even though he's already passed, but she feels too broken to even remove herself from the drying puddle of blood.

The reason she feels so broken, though? Now isn't that the million dollar question.

It's not like Draco is a close friend, and she's seen death before, ones far bloodier and far crueler than this one. She should be accustomed to it. Acting like she's just lost someone close to her isn't how she should be acting.

The situation is traumatic, he had, after all, essentially died in her arms. His blood is seeping through her clothes and staining her skin. Anyone would be traumatized. But this isn't the reaction of trauma, at least, not one she's ever had. She takes trauma and locks away what it does to her.

This, though, has bowled her over.

There aren't many things that can cause her to lose all sanity. Friendship, family, and love. Certainly none of those applied to her, right?

No, of course not. She hardly considers him a friend, let alone someone she might love. So what caused her reaction.

She sit and thinks for a long time, long after a cleaner has come to wipe away the blood and sanitize the area. In the end, she can only discern on cause.

Guilt.

Hermione feels guilty. It's her fault that Ron had shown up, her fault that Draco took the spell rather than her, and her fault that he is dead. She's the reason why a mother will have to hear about her son dying from a doctor who hardly knows him, and she's the reason that same woman will have to arrange a funeral for her son all on her own because there is no one else in the world who really cares about their family.

Hermione is at fault for not stopping the chain of events that led to Draco's faults, that is true, but she isn't the one who started them.

With the realization, fury bursts forth in her chest, driving her out of her lulled state of mind. None of this would have happened if Ronald hadn't came back. Draco would be alive if he hadn't came back. Ronald is just as much at fault as she is.

If her punishment was watching Draco die, then she will assure that Ron gets his serving of punishment as well. It's the least she can do.