Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter© or any of the concepts derived from the book series. The book series is the soul property of J.K. Rowling. I also do not own any of the Beatles' music, lyrics, or genius creativity.
This was written for the Shine a Light Draco/Hermione ficexchange on Livejournal. The prompt I got was:
Song, Poem, or Quote (title/original creator): "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." (The Beatles- "The End")
Describe your ideal gift in as few words/keywords as possible (plus rating): I'd like to see (even though it'd be a bit of a challenge) a post- DH fic that is epilogue compliant. A scene at St. Mungo's would be cool (not necessary, though)!
Hope you guys enjoy!
I Know the Lost Generation
Ron Weasley is hovering over the cusp of something big tonight.
I know this because Harry knows this, and Harry knows this because Ron knows this, and I suppose one could argue that Ron knows this because I know this—but even the smallest of creeks have to start and end somewhere and it certainly wouldn't do anybody any good if it eternally ran in circles, never pausing for other streams or gullies to empty out into.
Before Harry humbly bows out of the hospital room, I grab him by the hand and I tell him I know. I know that I am not sitting in a sunken and worn plaid armchair beside Ron's hospital bed with his hand dangling limply in my own because of any Auror-related collision or explosion.
What I really mean is—"Harry, you are lying to me".
When Harry lies, whatever fragment of emotion or life present prior to the vocalization of said offending fib completely… vanishes. As if to say he is being so entirely honest that emotion would only muddle up the gravity of honesty with all of its humanity business. Perhaps because he knows that I know this, he concedes with a blush and hurriedly leaves.
Ron and I have things to discuss.
Until Ron wakes up, I pass the time flicking my coffee at the wall to see how many words I can spell before the cleaning-charm kicks in and starts absorbing the coffee blotches into oblivion.
There is something to be said about the unnatural sterility of St. Mungo's. For a hospital so accustomed to all sorts of sordid diseases, some of which have this awful habit of ending in death, it is unusually quiet. Their sorry excuses for furniture are so visually offensive that my skin crawls as I sit down and sink into the sweaty worn cushion of the armchair like fabric quicksand. For the third time this month, I find myself holding Ron's limp wrist, shaking that dangling hand in the air while his eyes stay rolled back in his head, blocking out the nasty things I've been meaning to say to him since the last time we found ourselves in such a position.
We joke that this is part of the Auror Health Plan. No, not the paid-for visits to St. Mungo's part. The couples counseling part. Ron makes these appointments every so often, purely by accident most of the time, where he lies back in his hospital bed in that tacky paper blue gown and drifts in and out of consciousness, and I sit by his side and cradle his head and spout off all the grievances I've been compiling since our last appointment. He says he remembers what I say to him, that it's almost therapeutic, some sort of vocal nectar that always pulls him back from whatever threshold of pain he's stumbling along. But as I said before, I know things, all sorts of things, and I know that that is one big fat lie.
I am nearly out of coffee, but am so close to finishing off the 'R'. I watch in dismay as the wall soaks up 'WANKE', shooting it off to the same plaster oasis it sent my 'FUC', my 'SHI' and my 'THIS IS A FINE ESTABLISHMENT', ironically enough. I quickly glance over Ron's vitals as they beep-beep by, place his hand back over his chest, and claw my way out of my seat. I press my fingers to his lips and whisper something that vaguely sounds like "I love you"—but not quite. It sounds so much more impressive in my head. Out in the air, I haven't the heart to tell Ron that it doesn't quite sound like me.
I pull my cardigan tighter around me as I head towards the reception area where the coffee dispenser chugs and whines and complains of the heat. I help myself to another cup, then nestle into a chair to look over the dog-eared Witch Weekly that's been sitting on the coffee table since last winter.
I have just moistened my thumb with coffee-laced dribble to flip the cover when I notice the lone figure across the room, staring down through his folded hands at the speckled floor tiles. He is bouncing his leg in trepidation. I wonder whether he has seen me yet.
He glances up and I immediately stop thumbing through the glossed magazine pages.
I know this face. It sticks out brilliantly in my head.
It is difficult to look at him now, to know that at one point we walked the same hallways and ate the same meals and somehow, fought the same battle with those white faces looming over us and black hoods that set aflame when they touched Heaven. I want to forget that face. I want to forget everything that face reminds me of.
"Granger?" he says. His leg stops jiggling. My fingers stop moving. I feel my body growing numb. I never liked you, Draco Malfoy.
"What are you doing here?" he continues, standing up from his chair to come over to where I am now squirming uncomfortably in my seat. He has lost a bit of his swagger, and his eyes and hair have dulled with time, and something in general about him is simply off. When he hesitantly takes the seat across from me, I can't help but stare at him. He must realize how disconcerting this is.
"Draco?" I almost whisper. I need evidence that he still exists, that his name exists, that every dirty sin and indulgence of his exists, trailing behind him and clawing at his back. He looks as though his breath has caught in his throat. Does any one call him by his name anymore? Does any one call him at all?
"It's been a while," he finally replies.
"It has."
"So… what are you doing here?" he asks again.
This is so painfully awkward. I open my mouth. Then I shut it. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. Like a rickety screen door. I don't want to let him know anything about Ron and Harry and our relationships and my life. I manage a croak as I try to form words from blank thoughts.
"Ron's hurt, I take it?" he answers for me, "My father's room is across the hall. I saw you when you walked in."
I am baffled by his perceptiveness and also slightly perturbed by the fact that he seems entirely fine with being treated like an idiot. There is an uncomfortably long pause as I try to figure out how to excuse my rudeness. I didn't want to tell you because I don't really like talking to you.
No, that isn't like me. That is the part of me that's wrapped up in Ron. I hear Harry's voice at the back of my head, telling me to be a little more considerate. In the end the love we take is equal to the love we make. Like a broken record player.
I turn my head down in embarrassment, "I'm sorry—I just didn't… er… I—"
"It's alright. I wouldn't want to reveal to me information about my personal affairs either," he says light-heartedly, "How long has it been since we last spoke? A few yea—"
"A while," I butt in.
More than a while. A couple of years, give or take, I try not to keep track. I used to mark the days as they passed, but that pulled the War closer to me instead of pushing it further away. The last thing I wanted was to wake up again with hot sticky tears on my face, delusional and afraid that the War was still booming around us, that those were Molly's soft cries keeping me awake, not my own.
I think I'm beginning to understand what Draco is saying with his broken smile and sagging shoulders. With the way he embraces strangers in reception rooms.
The War turned him into someone else. The War turned all of us into someone else.
"So… your father's not feeling well?" I ask, pulling us both back into the reception area, hoping, praying that he isn't wandering around Hogwarts watching Harry nearly die.
"We'll see," he says with a shrug.
I nod, then stand up because I simply can't be here anymore, thinking about my morals and my values and how much of myself I'm willing to give to talk to Draco as if we're friends.
"I hope he feels better," I say.
"Thank you," he replies, and for an instant, I have forgotten who I am. Is this Draco? Am I still me? I awkwardly smile and quickly walk back towards Ron's hospital room.
When I reach the door, I glance back down the hall towards the reception area and catch him staring at me. There is something so sad about him, something that seeps through his skin and spreads through the air. I can feel it, rubbing up against me, pulling my attention back to him. He waves, then turns away.
I thought I hated Draco. Looking at him now, I realize that he is as part of this lost generation as Ron and I are. I wish there was enough compassion to save us all.
I open the door and turn my head in time to see Ron stumbling off the hospital bed to the ground.
"Ron!" I shout and run to his side to help him back up, but he waves my hands away and pulls his wand out from behind his back.
He flicks his wand and the fluorescent lights turn off. Candles and rose petals drop from the ceiling and all I can think is—Ron Weasley is on the cusp of something big tonight.
"Hermione Jean Granger," he says as he props himself up on one knee, "Did you know that you are incredibly difficult to surprise?"
"Ron!" I shout, caught somewhere between laughter and anger.
"'Mione, for once, could you just let me finish—"
I swat at him, and he laughs and grabs my hand.
"Okay, okay, geez—let me get to the point before you start beating me," he says, pulling out that little velvet box of heroic proportions from beneath the hospital bed.
"Hermione Jean Granger," he clears his throat, "Will you… do me the honor… of helping me out of this hospital gown?"
I groan and pretend to turn around and leave, but he stands up and grabs me by the shoulders. I smile, despite the fact that I have just been duped by Ronald Weasley, and woozily follow along with the list of reasons for why he loves me as he whispers them into the back of my neck.
"Hermione, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, " Ron says as he turns me around, "I want to wake up every morning with you, I want to love you and make love to you and keep you forever. I want to grow old with you. I want to be a part of you."
I feel my chest splitting down the middle. I hear my heart beating in my ears and I hear his breath grow faster as he clings to me.
"Marry me, Hermione. Marry me," he begs.
I manage a sob and a yes, and as he pulls the ring out of the pillow and slips it onto my finger, that campy song starts playing on loop in the back of my head. And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. Over and over and over.
xXx
Overnight, Lucius passes away. I know this because Ron knows this because Harry knows this because the nurse across the hall knows this. I try not to be moved, but the sadness seeps through my skin.
Draco—
I am so sorry to hear about your loss.
Warmest Regards,
Hermione
I tell myself that we're all a part of the lost generation.
xXx
In the autumn, Diagon Alley takes on a musky vanilla scent. It hangs onto my clothes and weighs me down and when I go back to the flat, Ron drinks it in and asks me how Neville and Hannah are faring over at the Leaky Cauldron. Every time, I tell him the same thing, and every time, he treats it as though he has never heard it before.
The roads feel particularly narrow this time of year. Every so often, a boy or girl in black robes will weave their way through the crowds, lugging about piles of books and owls in gilded cages. I have lost count of the open-mouthed stares. Perhaps they saw my battered and bruised face in the newest edition of Hogwarts, A History or from newspaper clippings hanging on their refrigerators.
I had much bushier hair then.
As I am walking out of Gringott's, I nearly stumble down the handful of steps into the crowded street below. There are ghosts in Diagon Alley tonight.
"Granger?" the apparition says to me, slipping through the crowd to grab my hand and help steady me. I glance to the side and see his reflection in the shop window and realize there is substance to this delusion.
"What are you doing here?" I ask breathlessly.
He laughs, "I didn't realize entrance to Diagon Alley was by invitation only."
I apologetically shake my head.
"No—no, I didn't mean it like that. I just… it's… you're Draco and… we don't talk," I manage to get out. I realize only moments later how inarticulate and rude I sound, but I am too bewildered to care. He is as I last saw him, sitting in that reception area with his broken smile and bent back. I am committing blasphemy against the Church of my brain's conception by speaking to him again.
"Here—let me take you to the Leaky Cauldron so you can sit down for a bit," he says. Without waiting for a response, he begins to pull me along through the crowd like a tugboat through curious waves. I try to take my hand back, but each time I stop, he turns around with that broken smile and a tilted head and I succumb to that sadness he bleeds through the streets.
When we get to the Leaky Cauldron, he finds a table tucked away in the corner where he pulls my chair back for me and gently pushes me into it. I should be running away now. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have even let him talk to me, much less share a drink with him, but I suppose ten years ago he was much more Malfoy and much less Draco and who I am to judge change over time when I've hardly kept track of who I've become. Still, I know Ron would want me to leave. I push my seat back before Draco can sit down.
"Draco—I don't know why you brought me here, and I don't know what you want from me, but I'm fine now, so thank you—I've got to finish running my errands," I babble as I edge myself away from the table.
"No, wait," he says as he jumps up, reaching his hand out to touch my shoulder. But then he thinks better of it and retracts the hand to his side. "I was just… hoping for some company."
Up until our meeting at St. Mungo's, I thought I had seen Draco at his weakest. I thought that War was something that brought out the animal in us, that degraded us and raped us of our dignity so we could live without caution. But at least during the War, everyone slept in shame so that shame became the human condition.
It was only after the War that we truly saw men at their weakest. Even men as cruel as Draco (or as cruel as Draco had been) had lived to some extent in the glory of their own self-assurance. At St. Mungo's, I never spoke a word to the Draco I knew. I spoke with the shell of the man that had been left behind.
So now, as he pleads with his eyes for me to stay with him and be that vestige of the past he needs me to be, I realize that I cannot turn him down, because some morbid part of me needs to remember what Hogwarts felt like before it lit up the sky with flames.
I pretend that I am chewing this over in my head, then slowly sit back down in the chair. He appears relieved as he slides back into his seat.
I see Hannah making her way over from the corner of my eye. She is probably as baffled by the sight of us together as I am.
"Hermione, Draco, what an… interesting…" she begins to say when she finally reaches our table. She never was very eloquent with her wording. But apparently, neither am I when dealing with similar awkward situations.
"I'll just have the usual, Hannah," Draco cuts in. I wonder how often Draco must come here in order to have a "usual". I wonder why Hannah has never told me about him.
"And Lemon Grass Tea and a glass of milk again?" Hannah asks, looking in my direction. I was just here yesterday, mulling certain things over with Hannah. She knows that my answer will be yes.
"I'll be right back," she says, nodding at us both as she walks away.
There is a lull while I wait for Draco to explain himself, but he just sits there, staring at me or the ground or the ceiling as if there are other things he would rather be doing.
"Draco?" I call to him.
"Yes?" he replies, folding his hands on the table like a schoolboy.
My frown splits into a smile at the sheer absurdity of the situation. I feel like I am high again, as high as those times after the War where Ron and Harry and I would sit by Dumbledore's grave and cry because those were the only times we could get away with it. I want to start crying again because I don't even know who I am sitting with. I don't know who I am when I am sitting with him. We are nobodies, doing nothing.
"You know, sometimes I wish we could be normal," he says, running a hand through his hair.
"Me too," I confess.
And just like that, we are back at Hogwarts, except Draco is not Draco and I am not Hermione and we lose ourselves in the memories we overexaggerate for the sake of feeling like we belong somewhere again.
When I am done with my milk and he is done with his wine, it is somehow past midnight and Hannah is eyeing us suspiciously from the far corner where she pretends to be looking through ledgers. I will have to explain this all to her later, though I'm not quite sure if I can even explain it to myself.
As we leave the Leaky Cauldron, I wonder if Draco knows that this is the last time we will talk to each other like this. St. Mungo's was a chance meeting. This was a chance meeting. This, right now, I am making sure will be a deliberate ending. I cannot hang onto the past anymore than he can hang onto his. I cannot spend any more time wishing I was anywhere else with anyone else because I am anchored to Ron and Harry and they have already figured out how to leave behind the past with the least amount of friction.
I wonder if Draco thinks about what could have been as much as I do. As much as I did.
"I keep expecting Weasley to burst through a wall with a meat cleaver and his hands poised to strangle," Draco says as we walk a little ways from the Leaky Cauldron.
"He's in Russia with Harry and the rest of the Aurors," I explain, "So there's no need to worry about dying tonight."
He chuckles as he tucks his hands into his pockets, "I suppose that's a relief."
I smile, too. This Draco has an infectious laugh.
"Congratulations, by the way," I say, gesturing towards the wedding band on his finger. He looks down at it as though he's forgotten it's there, but smiles when he pulls his hand out into the light of the nearby lamppost. We both know I'll never meet his wife, but we exchange the common courtesies regardless.
"I should be expressing the same wishes to you," he says, nodding towards my ring.
I laugh, "Ron actually proposed that night we were at St. Mungo's. The git was never really hurt."
I realize perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned that second half, simply because that night was the same night Draco's father died. My mouth hangs slightly open as I look up to catch Draco staring at me, reading the regret across my face. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It happened nearly two years ago, but still, I am sorry.
"I never thanked you for the Owl," he finally says, "Not many people expressed their condolences."
"Well, it was a busy time of the year—" I don't know why I am trying to excuse the ignorance of other people. I know why nobody sent any letters or flowers or cards. Nobody liked Lucius. Nobody likes Draco for the very same reasons I thought I didn't like Draco. But I don't believe any of those people ever saw Draco that night at St. Mungo's, a lost man mourning the death of another lost man. I think that night I was feeling lost too, but Ron somehow pulled me into harbor that night. Perhaps if there had been more time, and perhaps if circumstances had been different, Draco would have been the one to buoy me up out of the waters.
"Hermione—" he starts, but its clear that there's something wrong. Words clogging up his throat. I know the feeling, so I let the conversation fall into a lull as he lets the thoughts settle in his stomach until they're ready to come out.
"Hermione… I know that I'm an outcast," he begins, "I know how much you hate me. I know how much Weasley hated me. I know Harry only accepts me because of what my mother did for him."
I need to interject, "I don't hate you Draco—"
"Wait, let me finish," he stops me, "I know, most importantly of all, that you did not have to speak to me that night at St. Mungo's. You could have ignored me. You could have pretended you didn't know me."
I am beginning to feel the pressure of his words on my chest. It is compressing at uncontrollable speeds. I can feel my throat closing up because it kills me to think that one man could be so compliant with his loneliness. With the thought that he could die alone and hardly a soul would tremble.
"You showed me compassion, Hermione," Draco continues, his hands on my arms, "You showed me that there is something left in humanity. You know—we gave my father a private burial because my mother couldn't bare standing alone at her husband's casket while people sat in their homes with the funeral service announcements crumpled up in their wastebaskets. I thought I would live and die in the shadow of the War."
There is something heartbreaking about watching two lost souls find their way through the dark. Perhaps that is why I do nothing as Draco draws nearer, as his hands move up my arms before I see them. I feel them shakily touch my neck, and then my chin, and then my cheeks, and he holds them there with his eyes closed in reprieve and my brow knits because I don't know how else to stop myself from crying for him.
"You're going to be a great mother," he finally says, looking me in the eye.
I understand the purpose of the digression. He has already revealed more of himself than I would ever have expected him to. Still, I choke as I let out a strangled gasp because the digression he has chosen to embark upon is so utterly private. I feel too vulnerable.
"How did you—how did you know?" I stutter. Not even Ron knew yet. I had come to the Leaky Cauldron yesterday to talk to Hannah about it, about how I didn't want to tell Ron in an Owl. About how I wanted to see his face light up when I told him as soon as he got back from Russia.
"Hannah recommended the same drink to my wife last month when we found out she was pregnant," Draco says with a smile.
I should have known.
"You're going to be an incredible father, Draco," I reply accordingly.
"Thank you," he says. He lets out his breath in a slow hiss as he turns his head to the ground. Then he looks back up and from the way he is staring at me, I know he is thinking about St. Mungo's and the Owl and the conversation we just had at the Leaky Cauldron. He is thinking about it and savoring it as much as I am.
"Thank you for everything."
And then, with the light from the lamppost bathing us in its glow, for the first and last time we'll ever be lost and found together, for every single word we said that docked us at harbor, for every part of us that we thought the War had killed but had found in each other, Draco leans down and with the most heartbreakingly slow and gentle of pressures, kisses me. I can feel warmness filling my belly like liquor. I can feel my lips molding into his and at the same time I can feel us breaking apart and taking our pieces with us.
"You saved me," Draco says when we pull away from each other, "And I think I've been waiting since St. Mungo's to tell you that."
I nod, and I want to tell him that he helped save me too, but I don't know how without losing a part of myself to him again. It's for the best that this ends before we leave the safety of the lamppost's glow.
"I'll look for you at King's Cross," he says as he looks down at my belly and acknowledging that he knows this is the last we'll see of each other. We have our new lives to return to. We have our families to look forward to. This moment will probably haunt me for months, for years even, until I realize that by giving into this version of Draco, I am forfeiting all my holds on the small victories I've reaped from the War. We both need to move on, but in order to do that, we needed to finally remember what we were letting go.
"You'll be fine," I tell Draco as I take a step towards the edge of the lamppost's glow, "We'll all be fine."
And before I can dwell any further on the way he is looking at me, at the way his smile isn't broken, at the way his shoulders don't sag, I can feel myself slipping away from Diagon Alley and back to my flat with that campy song playing over and over again in my head, drowning out the pops and booms of my apparation. And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. Never ending.
This is our anthem Draco. It's slow, it's soothing, and it brings me to my knees.
Fin.
xXx