On the Way to the End - Dramione

Chapter 13

Hermione and Draco's feet hit the sandy beach. Draco was glad she allowed him to accompany her. He had expected her to want more of an explanation, but he was glad she didn't press him, especially where he didn't really know the answer. He looked around and noted how nice the location was.

They were only about ten feet away from the ocean and the safe house wasn't in sight yet. It was cloudy, but the sun was just rising and sea lavender rustled in the breeze. Hermione took a breath of fresh ocean air and frowned. Draco furrowed his eyebrows at her expression.

"What is it?" He asked, noticing her expression.

"You smell that?" Hermione asked.

Draco took a deep breath. Damn. Mixed in with the salty ocean scent was also the harsh smell of smoke. He caught her gaze and she pulled his arm slightly before letting it go and jogging off towards the safe house, wand in hand.

She ran up to the top of a hill where some of the sand fell away into rocky cliffs. Draco was close behind. But then she came to a stop. Draco, who was carefully watching his steps on the rocky hill bumped into her and immediately looked up.

There were the remains of clearly what was a beautiful house, now just a smoldering outline of boards. Hermione felt as her heart fell. "Fuck!" She shook her head and cursed loudly. Draco was shocked at her choice of language for he hadn't heard her swear many times in the time he'd known her.

"I should have come sooner!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Any earlier and you might of run into them." Draco reminded her.

"You shouldn't have stopped me!" She yelled at him.

"This fire is nearly out, it was probably started the same night as Grimmauld, Granger." He didn't yell, he had to keep his cool.

She was flaming though. Her fists clenched, repeatedly shaking her head. Draco put a hand on her shoulder. He did feel bad, but he couldn't have her running off getting killed. She huffed loudly. What had she expected? Draco had warned her and she should have known! But for some reason, seeing it made it all too real. Draco was right, there was no way she was going to fight off a group of Death Eaters on her own.

Hermione started down the hill towards the cottage. There was still hope. It was just dawn, the sun was just peaking over the horizon, filling the clouds with pink. Order members should be arriving at any moment, fire or not.

"Careful Granger," Draco's voice called quietly, "we don't know who still might be here."

She nodded and the due approached the house carefully, their wands at the ready. It looked fairly empty, but magic made things easy to disguise. Hermione felt a pang in her stomach as they neared the Shell Cottage. It was one of the most beautiful homes she had ever been in and now it was nothing more than smoldering beams and charred rocks.

After skirting the perimeter and finding nothing, Hermione and Draco settled themselves on a rock near the smokey house, awaiting someone to show. They waited quite a while in comfortable silence.

"Are you sure you want to be here when someone shows?" Hermione questioned, turning to the boy by her side.

"I have someone to vouge for me." He smirked, glancing at her before looking back to the ocean. Hermione scoffed. "It's really beautiful here," Draco commented, looking at the terrain.

The Gryffindor nodded, "I would love to live somewhere like this." She nodded. It really was beautiful. The ocean, maybe a few hundred feet away, with a soft sandy beach that led into sea lavender and sand-grass. Rocky ledges and cliffs dappled the sand the further you went away from the ocean and in the distance a forest.