Dramione One Shots

The Hardest Goodbye

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I'm purely playing around in the beautiful universe J.K Rowling has blessed us with.

XX

"You're leaving."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. He knew it even though she hadn't uttered the words.

"Yes."

She looked down at her hand, folded in her lap. It was harder than she had imagined in her head, to say it out loud.

"I understand."

He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her to his side. He knew why she couldn't stay. They were being careless already, meeting up like this. They could get killed.

"Doesn't mean I like it though."

It would be so hard not to see her every day next semester. Arriving to Hogwarts and not seeing her face in the crowd at the opening feast. It would be safer for her though. She would be tortured if she stayed, he was sure of it. Not only was she a muggleborn, no, she was also one of Harry Potters best friends.

"Draco,"

She looked up at him and placed a hand on his cheek.

"I'm going to miss you terribly."

Their eyes locked on each other and the world faded away around them and she felt an aching, deep inside her heart.

"I wish we had more time Hermione."

He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. This was the hardest goodbye he had ever faced.

"I know. If only we had truly known each other longer."

She wished she would have seen him without his cruel façade earlier. That she had found him in the bathroom, broken and repentant earlier than she had.

"It's my fault that we didn't."

He regretted not being man enough to apologize to her earlier than he had. He regretted not being able to go against his father's cruel, misguided ways. He wished he had known. Known that his father had been wrong. Wrong about everything.

"It's not your fault, you didn't know better. Not that I think what you did was okay, as you know, but still..."

She brushed his hair back, out of his eyes. It had fallen forward. Something that it tended to do a lot now that he had abandoned all the gel that had kept it pulled back all these years.

"Whatever you do Hermione Granger, you must promise me that you will try to be safe."

There was desperation in his voice. He needed her to make it through this wretched war that was inevitably coming. He needed her to make it out alive.

"I promise, but you must promise the same in return."

She looked at him with pleading eyes. She needed him to stay safe and alive just as much as he needed her to do the same.

"I promise, I'll try," he agreed.

And then there was no time left. He took her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers as if she were the oxygen he needed to live and she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as if she let go she would perish and then they parted and went their separate ways, not knowing what the future held or if they would ever see one another again, but desperately hoping they would.