Harry Potter One Shots

Light Me Up

All rights belong to the author, MaRsKiLlErS

Whatever it was that made her feel so incomplete, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, anyway. Harry was gone; Ron had changed so much to the point of being insane, Ginny didn't seem to want to go on without Harry there, so many people had lost faith...

Hermione knew that she was starting to, as well. Why was it always her who was meant to be the strong one? What if she didn't want to? She was so sick of hiding her fear, being strong for others, when she had barely enough energy left for herself.

The astronomy tower was in a way the only place for her, and in the darkness of night, she would simply come here and look up at the stars, remembering the happy times she had had with her friends. How she missed those.

A tear slowly flowed down her cheek and crashed down onto the stone floor, where it simply stayed, nothing more than a stain that reflected the moon light. The young girl closed her eyes and lifted up her face towards the stars. They shone brightly onto her pale skin, making the trace the tear had left on her face apparent.

New tears formed and dripped onto her clenched fists. They started burning lightly, but Hermione simply smiled as she felt that pain. It was nothing compared to how she felt inside. She looked down on them and could see the blood and bruises on them. How many times she had punched against the walls of the tower, she didn't know. All she knew was that it made her feel better. Nobody was there to hold her back, nobody was there anyway. It was all dark.

Hermione bit her lip as she stared at her hands, and slowly opened her fists. How could it have come to this? The eternal fighting had taken its toll on everyone, and this was the only way for her to get rid of any of her feelings of desperation, sometimes hatred for whoever had caused this. She felt guilty for taking them out that way, but for her, there was no other option. She couldn't just weigh others down who had so much pain to carry themselves, and so had to deal with it herself.

Steps were heard behind her, and she whirled around to see who it was. A flash of blonde and grey. She turned back again, and went on staring at the sky. Malfoy. He had been of their best sources concerning death eaters and other small things like that. He had helped them getting a strategic advantage during important tasks and provided them with important information. He had never been evil, just something like a coward. That's what she thought of him, in a way, not sure of what else to see in him.

Hermione wasn't sure if he really was, but she didn't care, didn't want to care. What did he want here anyway? She hadn't really seen him in the past few months, when they had all been struggling. He had always been there, somewhere, but nowhere near.

He came over and stood next to her, and she took care to hide her hands in the folds of her cloak. Nobody was meant to see. Malfoy simply stood there, looking nowhere in particular, saying nothing.

"What do you want?" she finally asked, no real emotion in her voice. It was up to him to see if he wanted to stay or not.

"It's a nice night" he replied instead, both of them not looking at each other.

"I haven't had one of those in a long time" the young girl replied bitterly.

"True..." he sighed.

"It's not like you know how I feel anyway" she snapped. She could feel him stiffen.

"You don't know what you're talking about, do you?" he whispered.

"Enlighten me then" she bit back, sarcastic.

"All those nights in which I haven't seen the moon...All those days in which I haven't seen the sun...Blood...pain...men screaming, betraying their very family with the hope to get out alive again."