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Snow whispered its secrets across the cobblestones of a deserted Parisian street. The Revolution had swept through like a savage tide, leaving memories frozen in time. Hermione Granger stood in the shadows of an ancient elm tree, her breath curling into fragile clouds that dissolved into the frigid air. Above her, the stars shimmered with a distant, melancholic light. Somewhere, a violin played, its mournful tune weaving through the night like a ghost from another life.
Once, this city had been hers.
And his.
She wrapped her arms around herself, her fingers brushing against the fur lining of her cloak. The echoes of the past clung to her skin, the scent of parchment and spice from a life she thought she'd left behind. Draco Malfoy had always been an enigma, a storm wrapped in silver and silk. And yet, during those dark days when the world seemed to burn, he had been her tether.
Their meetings were fleeting—hidden in abandoned libraries, in gardens veiled by winter frost, beneath a crumbling bridge where revolutionaries plotted their futures. She had tried to hate him then, tried to push him away. He was a man of privilege, a reluctant heir to a fading aristocracy. But his hands, calloused from the weight of choices neither of them understood, had always found hers in the dark.
One night, beneath the glow of a single candle, he had whispered, "Even revolutions end, Hermione. But not us."
But they had.
Now, as the winter wind carried the melody of her youth, she wondered if she'd imagined him entirely. Draco had vanished like smoke, leaving her with only questions and regrets. The cold night seemed to mock her as she wandered deeper into the city, where memories waited at every corner.
A hidden garden lay beyond the old opera house, shielded by ivy and the ruins of an iron gate. Hermione hesitated, her breath catching as she stepped inside. The snow lay untouched, a pristine canvas of white. But it wasn’t empty.
He stood beneath the bare branches of an oak tree, his silhouette sharp against the pale moonlight. His coat was heavy, trimmed with fur, but his face was thinner now, his jaw shadowed with the weight of years.
“Draco,” she whispered, as though saying his name might shatter the fragile peace of the night.
His head turned sharply, his gaze locking onto hers. For a moment, the world seemed to stop.
“I thought you wouldn’t come,” he said, his voice low, laced with both accusation and relief.
“I thought I couldn’t.” She stepped closer, the snow crunching beneath her boots. “Why now? After all this time?”
His laugh was bitter, almost brittle. “Do you know how many times I’ve walked this city, searching for you? Hoping for a glimpse, a shadow, anything to prove you were still real?”
Hermione’s throat tightened. “You left me.”
“You let me go,” he shot back, his words sharper than any blade.
The silence between them grew heavy, laden with the weight of unsaid truths.
“I couldn’t watch you disappear,” she admitted, her voice breaking. “Not when you were everything I had left. It was easier to pretend you were just...gone.”
Draco’s expression softened, his eyes tracing the lines of her face as though memorizing her anew. “And yet, here we are. Still standing in the wreckage of what we couldn’t say.”
The air grew colder, the stars dimmer, as they spoke of years lost and moments stolen. He told her of his exile, his struggle to find purpose in a world that no longer wanted him. She spoke of her solitude, the nights spent dreaming of a future she had been too afraid to seize.
“Do you ever think,” she asked, “that we’re meant to be like this? Two shadows chasing each other through the snow?”
Draco looked up at the sky, his breath visible in the icy air. “I think we’re meant to remember, Hermione. To carry these winters with us, no matter where we go.”
“Even if they hurt?”
“Especially then.”
She smiled faintly, tears threatening to spill. “You always did have a flair for philosophy.”
“And you,” he said, stepping closer, “always had a knack for making me believe it.”
Their hands met, tentative at first, then firm, as though anchoring themselves to the only constant they had ever known. The violin’s melody drifted to them once more, a haunting refrain that spoke of love and loss, of time slipping away like snowflakes melting on skin.
As they stood together beneath the barren trees, Hermione realized that their story had never truly ended. It had merely paused, waiting for the right December to begin again.
Fin.