Originally posted to AO3 and FFnet in October 2018.
She died in the Battle of Hogwarts. Some bloody martyr act that had earned her a Killing Curse from Bellatrix. Draco still didn't know exactly what it was, and he wasn't about to ask her.
McGonagall said she popped up during the rebuilding effort and started informing the crew of how best to restructure the library, yelling at the workers when they put up a wall that wasn't there before. She'd requested to stay at Hogwarts, and to keep her new state of existence from Potter, the Weasleys, and anyone else not returning to school. Another thing Draco wasn't going to ask her about.
As for Draco, his very own martyr act during the Battle had kept him out of Azkaban. He'd pulled McGonagall out of the way of Killing Curse at the last moment, only to look up and see his father at the other end of the wand. Lucius's grey eyes had stared at him, puzzled, until McGonagall fired a Stunning Spell and dragged Draco along with her into the next corridor. That was the last time he'd ever seen his father. He refused to investigate exactly what had killed him.
A greying tabby cat had appeared edge of the Manor's Apparition wards on August 31 that year. Draco stared her down, and left to run his errands. When he Apparated back, the cat was still there. He sighed and faced her.
McGonagall grew in front of him, pushed her glasses back into place and said, "It's not polite to keep a woman waiting, Mr. Malfoy."
"It's more polite to make appointments, Minerva." He opened the gate and turned to lead her down the garden path to the Manor, but she didn't follow.
"Horace is dying."
He looked at her over his shoulder, taking in her empty eyes.
She continued, "Some curse from the Battle. He's been brewing potions to keep himself alive, but he's let me know yesterday that he's... tired." She pressed her lips together, as if she wished she could just be tired as well.
"Can I help with the brewing? Is there... Can I do anything?"
She pulled an envelope from of her robes and extended it to him. "You can be at King's Cross tomorrow morning at eleven sharp." He stared down at the letter addressed to him. "We are in need of a Potions Master."
She Disapparated before he could decline or argue. Because she knew him too well.
After the welcome speech, and after his anxiety had calmed once no one had hissed at the announcement of his name as Potions Master, he grabbed a dinner roll and a Pumpkin Pasty, excusing himself to Severus's old quarters to figure out exactly what he'd be teaching tomorrow. The first years were one thing, but the seventh years? He had barely made it through his own seventh year, squeaking by on the N.E.W.T.s.
He turned a corner and found Granger, staring up at a portrait, translucent.
A sharp cold clutched his lungs, stopping him dead in his tracks. She hovered off the ground, wearing a hooded jumper and denim jacket. She turned to see him standing there, frozen. Dried blood at her temple.
She looked him up and down.
"So," she said, and her voice was just as he'd remembered it, "you've chosen to haunt the castle as well?" She lifted her brows. "I'm dead. What's your excuse?"
~*~
He generally tried to stay away from her. She was... too much. And quite honestly, he'd made his peace with the death of Hermione Granger months ago.
He'd attended the funeral for Merlin's sake.
But she kept popping up. She walked through the door - through it - of his third year Potions class the following Tuesday. He was in the middle of adding the lacewing flies and his fingers paused as he watched her take a seat at the back of the room. She leaned forward on her stool, chin resting in her hand and watched him for the rest of class.
When he added too many Doxy eggs to the potion he was demonstrating, she just smiled.
He came across her in the corridors mainly. Leading the Quidditch team down to pitch, he would turn a corner and find her at the end of the long hall staring up at one of the portraits, angling her head to the side. A speck of grey in the distance.
Some days she would walk the halls with Luna Lovegood, having thorough discussions of death and Nargles.
He promised himself he would never ask her questions, but when he caught her staring at a suit of armor after breakfast one day, students swerving around her to avoid the shock of cold, he stopped and stood next to her.
The metal sculpture looked no different from his eleven brothers lining the hall. He turned to her. "What are you looking at, Granger?"
She tilted her head to him, like she'd just realized he was there. "I've decided to appreciate the artwork here in the castle. I'm taking in one piece a day. I suppose this will be my home now. Forever." She turned back to the hulking metal before them. "So, it's a good way to pass the time."
She had blood or dirt on the hood of her jumper. A darker color than the fabric. Had it been pink?
He looked at the stones on the ground.
"It's my birthday tomorrow," she said.
He stared at her profile as she examined the suit of armor. She would always look this way. Can't change your clothes in the afterlife. Can't age.
"Happy birthday, Granger." He moved around her and headed to class.
The next day she sat in the back of his classroom again, and when a first year eagerly answered a question, correcting a classmate and bouncing on her heels, Granger grinned up at him through silver lips.
Before he headed out to lunch, he asked her, "Why don't I see Potter and Weasley here visiting you?"
She stared down at a Potions text that someone had left behind. "Because I asked Minerva not to tell them. They'd be here every day if they knew. I want them to move on, even if I can't."
Bloody Gryffindors. He wanted to ask her more, but he'd already broken his vow today not to ask her any questions. He moved to the dungeon door.
"Can you flip the page before you go?"
Her little body floated over the stool, hunched over the book she'd probably memorized when she was eleven.
His fingers felt stiff, plucking the page and turning it over.
A tiny "thank you" from her as he left.
When he came back after lunch, she was in the same place. He turned the next page for her.
~*~
He had to visit the library on the weekends to prepare for his upcoming classes. Most professors had their own texts they had accumulated over years of teaching, but he was empty-handed.
He found her at a small table in the corner, legs crossed, next to a fourth year Ravenclaw boy. The boy turned the page in his own novel, and reached over to turn her page.
The next day, he found a similar picture with a seventh year Hufflepuff girl.
~*~
She slithered through his wall one evening as he was grading scrolls. He froze, but managed not to jump and spill his red ink everywhere.
He watched her slide through his desk to look down at the essay. She said nothing, but he feared he was being graded as much as his student was.
"Why don't you teach?" he asked. She looked up at him. "Binns does it. McGonagall could have offered you the Potions position."
"She did," she said, matter-of-fact. "I turned it down. You need a wand to teach most magic. And I could never actually brew a potion as a Potions Mistress." She ran her finger over one of his notes in red, touching nothing. "I told her to offer it to you."
He wanted to ask her why, but he'd hit his quota for questions that day.
It was her turn.
"McGonagall says you saved her in the Final Battle. You fought your father for her?" She looked down on him through silver lashes. He tried to remember what color her eyes had been.
"Nothing as heroic as that, I assure you. I simply nudged her to the left. Didn't know it was my father's spell." He returned to his grading.
"Sounds heroic to me," she whispered, and he heard it crash on him like a wave. A shiver ran through him so cold he had to make sure she hadn't touched him. He looked up as she sauntered to the door. "Sounds downright Gryffindor." She winked at him and transferred through the stone door.
He sat at his desk for five minutes in silence, staring at the place her body disappeared, wondering if she was still there.
He had no idea Hermione Granger flirted when bored. No wonder she'd kept herself so tediously busy in school.
~*~
The year passed much like that. She'd sit in on his classes every so often, drop by his office once a week, and she'd find a new painting to examine every day.
He never saw her at Quidditch matches, which was normal, or in the Great Hall. As the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts approached, McGonagall informed him that Potter, Weasley, and several others would be coming to pay their respects and speak to the school.
He found her peeking through the Great Hall doors that day, her eyes floating through the wood every now and then.
When the crowd applauded Potter's speech and everyone settled in to eat, he excused himself and found her floating in the Entrance Hall, ear sliding through the door.
"You won't tell them still?" he said.
"Ron's engaged," she said simply. "I saw it in the Prophet. I don't want to ruin it." She peeked around the door he'd left open a crack. "I'm not real. What they have now is real."
He looked over her shoulder, watching Potter hug Hagrid, Ginny Weasley by his side.
"You're real to me," he hummed. "More so than before."
She turned, looking up at him. She smirked. "You need to get yourself a girl, Draco. Or I'll start to get ideas."
He bit back a grin, and she disappeared through the floor.
~*~
"What do you want for your birthday?" she asked on June 4th. "Mind you, your options are limited. I can sing. I can recite Hogwarts: A History, mostly from memory. Or I can reach through your chest for a bit of thrill."
"I'd love it if you could get Myrtle to leave me alone," he murmured over the book he was reading.
"Oh, that's no fun. I told her you were lonely, looking for love."
His eyes flipped up to her. "You didn't."
"I did," she sang. "I told her you were turning nineteen soon and would be too old for her."
He rolled his eyes, returning to his book.
"Tomorrow, you'll be officially older than me," she said. She reviewed his shelves, as she often did in his office. "You'll have to tell me what it's like."
~*~
He still had the Manor and his mother, so there was no reason to stay at Hogwarts over the summer holidays.
And he did end up finding a girl. She was sweet, and cheerful, and an excellent kisser.
And on September 1st he was the first person on Platform 9 and 3/4.
~*~
"I know you're there, Granger," he said, setting down his red ink quill and running a hand over his tired face. She floated through the chalkboard, twisting a curl around her fingers. "What do you want now?"
She looked down at the scroll he was correcting, stepping through the teacher's desk.
"So, you're just going to let that answer slide then?"
"It's acceptable. It's almost correct," he said.
"Severus would be so disappointed."
"Hmm."
"You've gone soft. He said as much to me yesterday."
His head snapped up. "Severus? Is he...?"
"No," she smiled. "Teasing."
He slowed his beating heart and sipped at his tea. She looked over his shelves again.
"Why do you think you stayed?" he asked. Her fingers ran over his books like she hadn't heard him. "So many people died that day. You are the only ghost from the Battle of Hogwarts."
"Oh, you know," she said playfully. "It's probably all my unfinished business."
"Like what?"
"Becoming Minister of Magic, creating equal rights for house elves, all that rot." She dipped her face into the drawers near his desk, snooping.
"You can still do all that as a ghost. If anyone could, it would be you."
She stood tall, and looked down on him, smirking.
"But then who would run the Draco Malfoy Fan Club with Myrtle? We're still deciding on a name. It's between 'Incorporeal Insiders' and 'Ectoplasmic Enthusiasts.' I'm Vice President. Myrtle insisted on being President."
"Of course." He capped his ink pot, ready to give up on the grading.
"We take turns watching you sleep, you see."
"Oh, sure."
"Myrtle is the true fan, visiting you in the bath."
"Hm, I haven't had the pleasure," he said, standing.
"That you know of." She wiggled her brows at him. He paused, considering. "I haven't mustered up the courage yet. That's why I'm only the Vice President, I suppose."
"You're welcome any time, Granger." He only paused to think after the words had left him. He pressed his lips together and looked to her.
That playful smile spread across her lips. The one she'd use just before telling him she liked his hair better this way, or before calling Peeves to throw something at him.
"Alright," she whispered, floating closer. "Maybe I've peeked."
He felt the heat rush to his neck, and he watched her eyes. He decided they were amber before. "Have you now?"
Her lashes fluttered, silver as spider webs. "Of course." Floating closer, he could feel the temperature drop. "Nothing else to do around here." Voice low, lulling him into a peace. "And you're a sight for dead eyes, believe me."
She smirked, waiting for him to roll his eyes at her and pull away. He swallowed.
Her gaze dipped to his throat, watching it move, then gliding up to his lips. He felt his heart beating, fast enough for the both of them.
Hermione Granger tilted her head up, and pressed her grey lips against his. He felt it like a shiver, blossoming from his mouth and through his veins.
He opened his eyes to find her still in front of him, eyes dancing between his.
"I can feel your warmth, I think."
~*~
"I need your help," she said one day after classes. She didn't visit his office any more, and they didn't talk about the kiss. Or the "meeting of two beings on different planes of existence."
She'd sat in the back of the room for the full day, and finally just before dinner, she floated through the student work tables toward the front.
"Yes?" he said.
"I need a book in the Restricted Section."
He blinked at her. "Do you need a note? Or...?"
"No, you dunderhead. I need hands." She rolled her eyes.
He followed her to the library, fascinated by how she would sometimes float and sometimes walk like she used to.
He pulled the book for her, noticing the ancient Sumerian title, and set a charm for her. The book would turn pages every two minutes. He summoned her a Quick-Quotes Quill so she could make notes.
He didn't see her for a few weeks after that.
On Halloween that year, he was monitoring the hallways for pranks and tricks before breakfast when he spotted Minerva standing at the Entrance Hall, staring out into the courtyard. He was fifty paces away still when he heard a disturbance beyond the doors, footsteps running. He pulled his wand as Minerva stood still.
Potter and Weasley burst into the castle like storm, talking over each other, throwing their arms out wide.
Minerva spoke quietly, her voice a gentle hum under them. She turned to lead them down the hall, beckoning them to follow.
"It wasn't until yesterday that she allowed me to contact you, Mr. Potter. I have kept no secrets that were mine to tell."
The three of them disappeared down the corridor leading to the library, Potter glancing his way at the last second.
So, she'd come clean. He wondered what changed her mind.
There was no sign of them throughout the day. It was a Sunday, so he had very little responsibilities besides monitoring the halls and chaperoning the Halloween Feast.
After dinner, he walked the halls looking for troublemakers, and if he passed the library doors more often than necessary, well, then that was no one's business but his own. At about 11:30PM on his final pass, he switched directions to the dungeons, intent on turning in early.
Weasley stepped out of the library doors.
Draco's footsteps stuttered, but he tried to nod at him and continue on his route.
"You were just going to keep her all to yourself, huh?"
Draco turned and faced Weasley's angry expression.
"I don't know what you mean."
Ron advanced toward him, red-rimmed eyes and sniffling nose.
"You didn't think once of telling us she was..." he trailed off.
"She was what?" Draco planted his feet. "Alive? That would be a lie."
"No," Weasley said, shaking his head. "But we could have talked to her. Visited. Shared our lives with her." He stared him down, lifting a ginger brow. "But instead, you got her."
He felt his heart jump. He took a calming breath and said, "She didn't want you to know." Draco stepped into the taller boy. "And I don't owe you anything, Weasley."
"Ron." Potter's voice from the library door. "It's time for us to leave."
Weasley whipped around, eyes wide. "She doesn't want us to stay for it?"
Draco blinked, watching Potter shake his head sadly. Weasley rubbed his fists into his eyes and cursed, shoulders tense. He turned on his heel and almost sprinted away. Potter nodded to Draco, and followed.
Minerva appeared through the doors. "Mr. Malfoy? Perfect timing. Would you come with me?"
Draco felt numb as he took one last look at Potter and Weasley's retreating forms and followed Minerva into the library. She led him through the stacks, weaving towards the Restricted Section. She paused at the doors and pointed towards the back.
"Miss Granger is waiting for you."
He stared at her. Her eyes were drawn and her lips tight. He nodded and continued deep into the Restricted stacks, searching for a silver glow.
He found her at the same table he'd set up for her weeks ago. She leaned over the Sumerian book, lips running as she read something to herself. She looked up and smiled.
"Draco, hello." She checked the large clock on the corner wall.
"So, you decided to tell them."
"Yes," she said, looking down at the book again. "I figured it was the best way to move on. For all of us." She flipped a page and mouthed the words—
She flipped a page.
Draco stared at her fingers, pinching the parchment and turning it back, affecting it.
"You're... You can –"
"It's only temporary, I'm afraid." She shot another look at the clock. "And we haven't much time."
11:47PM.
"The closer to midnight, the more corporeal I become," she continued.
"You found this in the Sumerian book?" he asked, stepping closer to her, noticing that her clothing had brightened. He could see the blood stain on her jumper. The blue of her denim jacket popping forward against the pink hood. It was pink.
"Yes." She closed the book with a focused effort and turned to face him. "I'm moving on."
It took a moment to understand. "Moving on?" He felt a tightness in his ribs. "You can do that?"
"Yes. The best way to do so is in a corporeal form. And the best way to achieve that is on Samhain." She looked at the clock again and stepped towards him, a bit more than an arm's length away. "I just have to finish. Er, my business, that is."
"You expect to become Minister of Magic in twelve minutes?" he tried. Twelve minutes. Was that all?
She smiled. "I said my goodbyes to Harry and Ron. We spent the day together. They were my largest tether to this world. And Harry is going to look in on my parents once a year." Her voice was shaking, jumping from word to word. "It's easier that they don't remember me. They won't have to let go. It's just me who will need to release them."
He couldn't follow. He'd never asked her about her parents in their recent post-mortem acquaintance. He felt very foolish for that.
She started to pace, and he was struck that she didn't float. Hard footsteps on the stones. He looked at the clock. 11:50PM.
"So, I said goodbye. Gave them the moment they wished they'd had with me before my death. And they said they'd promise to let go at midnight." Her hips smacked into a desk, unaccustomed to her body once again. "Ow. And uh, McGonagall will do the same. I really think that's all. The tethers will release." She turned to face him again. "It's just you, really. You're all that's left."
He was wrong. Her eyes had been a deep brown. Almost black. Not amber at all.
"Me? I tethered you?" His throat was going to close in on itself.
"Not before," she whispered. "But you are now." She bit her lip. "You make me want to stay."
His lip trembled, and a pinch behind his eyes forced his gaze from her. It landed on the clock.
11:51PM.
"And you want to move on," he said. A statement to confirm.
She nodded. "I think I have to." She stepped closer. "Draco, you've been such a friend to me in my afterlife—"
He grimaced, sneered as he turned away from her. Of course. She'd kissed him with her cold dead lips and then called him a friend.
"—You made it all bearable." She tried to get him to face her. He twisted away again. A small laugh as she said, "And if I don't go now I'll probably haunt you forever—"
He spun to her. "Well, what's wrong with that?!" He sucked in air. A tear spilled over and he pushed it away before it escaped. "There's a ghost in the attics of Malfoy Manor. We don't see him much but he's there. We— we could apply to the Ministry for your relocation." He tugged a desperate breath into his lungs.
She blinked her dark eyes at him, watching his wet gaze. She shook her head, clearing it, and pasted on a grin. "And what? I'd just float the halls alongside you and your wife for years to come?" Chuckling.
"What wife?!" He gasped, fingers shaking. The laughter faded from her eyes, and she stared softly. He stepped closer to her. "What wife?"
She looked him over, lips parting. Pink, and alive. And she'd be gone soon.
"I..." she stammered, "I can't be what you need, Draco. I'm dead." She looked away from him. "And that's why I need you to release me at precisely midnight."
He shook his head at the clock. 11:56PM. "And how am I supposed to release something I never knew I had?"
She paced. "If I'd known you'd be this difficult I would have given this part more time," she muttered.
"Sorry for failing to cooperate with the masterplan I just learned of nine minutes ago," he grumbled, sniffing.
"No, I just mean, I didn't know you felt..." She trailed off, looking at the wall over his shoulder. She bit her lip. "It doesn't matter." She shook off her thoughts. "This is the exact reason Harry and Ron couldn't know before," she muttered.
He watched her, trying to avoid the clock, trying to take in every detail.
He didn't know her in life. Not really. Didn't know how funny she was, or the way her eyelids lowered when she flirted, or how much joy she got from riling people up.
And he would never know her scent. Or the way she would feel in his arms.
He forgot to memorize her.
She stepped up to his chest. No temperature drop.
"I don't want you to live half a life, Draco," she said. "Your closest companion shouldn't be a ghost." She looked forward, at his chest. "You just have to wish me well," she whispered. "And believe - for just a second - that it's the best choice."
He took a deep breath and nodded, feeling his chest cracking.
"What else do you have to do to move on?" he asked, turning the attention from himself. "Is there a spell? Do you need my wand?"
She shook her head slowly. "Spells have been cast. I just need to do one more thing. To feel finished."
He watched her as she moved closer, reaching her hand out, pressing her skin against his cheek. Not cold. Not warm.
She stood on her tiptoes, her other hand sliding to his shoulder. "I can't have any regrets," she hummed against his lips. Her lips brushed his, and he wrapped an arm around her back, running fingers down her spine, relishing how solid she was in front of him.
She kissed him again, her hands moving to his neck, through his hair, and he pressed her body close. His hand lifted to cradle her face, and he tilted her back, letting his tongue taste her. She warmed in his arms, and he squeezed his eyes closed to keep from looking at the clock.
She wrapped herself around him, pressing her chest close, her arms circling his neck, her hips just barely connecting with his own, and she pressed her tongue back, drinking the life from him.
She pulled back, breathing against his face, and he tried to hold onto the feeling of her breathing.
"Life is only temporary, Draco," she whispered.
He kept his eyes pressed closed, nodding, squeezing her in his arms.
"Please release me."
His arms slithered from her as he remembered the way she needed help to read a book, the way she couldn't teach, couldn't be held.
She should be happy somewhere. She could be free.
The clock chimed midnight. He opened his eyes and she was gone.
~*~
Minerva was there for him outside the library. She tried to touch his arm, and he moved away from her, following the path down to the dungeons.
He appeared in classes the next day, despite the Headmistress's suggestions. His eyes drifted to the back row, the empty seat.
He found himself in front of the suits of armor more often than he cared to admit, studying their shape, or examining their placement in the corridors. There were several paintings he had never noticed before too.
He stayed at Hogwarts for four more years. Potter came to visit for the five-year anniversary of the Battle. He took him to Hogsmeade for a drink and told him the story of Severus and his mother. Draco frowned and fought and pouted that it wasn't the same.
He left for the Ministry after that. Worked with the Aurors, always taking the dangerous cases, narrowly escaping death, and collecting serious injuries like badges.
He married Astoria Greengrass. She was lovely. And a good listener. But he'd hear whispers at night, hauntings of a different life. Some mornings he'd even wake up smiling, letting the sound of her breath hover over the day.
After all, life was only temporary.
He'd smile, and think to himself:
Leave it to Hermione Granger to find a way to kill him slowly for a hundred years.