Word Count: 1,498
Warnings: Couple of expletives
Challenge/Competition: The Dinner Table Challenge
Prompt/s: Hermione granger and a discarded book
Disclaimer: I don't claim to own Harry Potter, it's all JKR's.
Note: Probably worth noting that this is set 2-3 years after the Wizarding War.
She sits at a table in a local cafe, tucked away in the corner inside of a book, hoping to shrink in on herself.
'Hermione Granger?' a voice that she can place in seconds, easy on her ears yet somehow slick with ice.
'Hi,' she replies, turning back to her book.
'Hi.' He actually smiles, and takes a seat opposite. She blinks twice, checking in on her sanity - that she's seeing what she thinks she is.
Breathe, she reminds herself. Drawing in a sharp breath, she drags her arms across her coffee table as fury mingled with desperation bubbles inside of her so intensely that it threatens to bleed out.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. She stares at the books all over the floor - what does it matter, anyway? They're just books. They aren't people. There are no people. She has no one left.
Even when she thought she had something, clung on to the fragments of anything in him, turns out that he grew into her cracks and split her wide open.
It's late and she finds herself in a bar, thoughts swirling. A glass of wine down and the edges of her mind are blurring.
'We really can't keep bumping into each other like this, Granger.'
He challenges her to shots, and a challenge with a Malfoy is hardly something she'd ever turn down. Eight firewhiskey shots stinging in her throat and she's champion. Maybe he let her win, and just maybe she doesn't care.
'What ever happened to Weasley?' he asks coolly, eyebrow raised.
She chuckles, sarcastic - she may be drunk, but she's not a fool.
Thoughts of Ron cut into her mind and she winces. Oh Ron. She wishes they could have worked - maybe they still could. Maybe he was always the one.
She bites her lip, so many memories and emotions and thoughts all mingling in her ribcage, icy and warm and boiling hot - all biting, clawing, scratching at her insides.
They were so young. Too young. The war pushed them together and then tore them apart when they tried to live in a real, adult world, and her heart shattered as they did.
So she fell into the arms of another, using him - his elegant words and passionate kisses to fill her empty spaces while ignoring the fact that it felt like they were just two broken parts sellotaped together.
An owl through the window of her apartment. She plucks away the note, finding an elegant scrawl reading 'I did promise the winner a meal. I'll come at eight.'
She scowls at the note, going into an instant state of panic. This is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. She hates him. Why would she go for dinner with him? Merlin. She can't go.
… It's just that this man doesn't remind her one bit of the boy who bullied her throughout her time at Hogwarts. Bullied her - she rolls her eyes at herself, he is a disgusting human being. But maybe he has changed. We've all changed.
She is not the girl she was three, two, even one year ago. And maybe neither is he. Everyone deserves a second chance.
What a mistake. Broken people are broken people, and he is a lot of shards of one big broken mess that she can't fix - that he doesn't even want her to fix. She stares at her front door, willing him to knock despite even the thought of his name making her throat feel thick with poison.
'I can't love you anymore' rings through her mind again and again and again.
She has never felt so unworthy, and she sickens herself. It's pathetic. He's just a boy - it's just Draco fucking Malfoy, for Merlin's sake, and that is the absolute irony; she opened herself up again to have doors slammed in her face.
They walk down the street, night cloaking them. She feels oddly at ease, so much so that it counters itself with unease. She watches as he talks - the movements of his jaw and his cheekbones, and catches herself finding him attractive for more than a millisecond.
So much time has been spent with him - she realises as he leads the way to her house, knowing it off by heart from seemingly any direction they come. They get to her front door, and something about the atmosphere feels off. Heavy.
'I like you a lot, Hermione Granger,' he says, the words rolling off his tongue so warmly in contrast to the ice she remembers from the coffee shop.
The corners of her mouth twitch, she fights a smile - still trying to hold her guard up, however much it has crumbled. 'I like you t-,' she replies, cut off by his lips on hers. He pushes her against the door, her body going weak. So vulnerable, yet it seems this is the answer for her.
She laughs at the ridiculousness, the memory burning in her skull. She needs to stop thinking. She needs to sleep, to talk, to read - anything, anything but think of him, yet it's all she can do. She feels like she's dancing on the edge of insanity, it actually puts fear into her bones.
Making a snap decision, she grabs a jacket and leaves the house, slamming the door behind her, determined to think about anything else. She walks briskly, the cold air taking the breath out of her, her concentration on thinking about not thinking - and failing.
And she slams straight into someone. Taking short and sharp breaths to stop herself from crying (how pathetic, she remarks to herself), she barely even notices who is standing before her. How ridiculous, she breaks into laughter at the irony of it. He looks at her quizzically. Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger have actually become cliche.
She narrows her eyes, remembering that he doesn't even live in this area and this street is straight in the direction of her apartment. 'Were you - were you coming to see me?' her voice shakes pathetically.
He nods.
They lie in her bed, entwined with each other. He hasn't spoken in a long time, and it's making her uneasy.
'Are you okay?' she asks.
'Yeah,' he replies, grey pools staring at nothing in particular.
He makes her feel like this too often - she is not at ease, making excuses for him, wondering what possibly she could have done wrong. Maybe it is her, maybe it is him. Maybe it's them. She laughs internally, because why would he have pursued her if he didn't want her? She's being stupid.
'I just find this difficult. I'm not an easy person to love. I'm not good at loving people. I've never really seen it and definitely never experienced it, and it terrifies me,' he tells her, actually looking at her this time.
And she softens, because that, she can work around.
She turns to walk away, her mind being torn to shreds in conflict of how she should act. She wanted him to come through her door, and now he is right in front of her and she hates him more than she loves him all over again.
He grabs her arm. 'I shouldn't have said what I said.'
'It doesn't matter now. You can't take it back,' she says, internally wishing with her every fibre that he could and that she was a weaker person so that she could let him take it back. She puts one foot in front of the other, mentally forcing herself to walk away.
Draco follows, speaking so fast she barely understands a word. He's frantic, she's never seen this side of him. She ignores him, and eventually he stops. She feels his eyes burning a mark into her back as she walks home.
A week later she decides to clean her living room. To pick up the discarded books, their few photos strewn on the floor, the empty wine glasses scattering her coffee table. It cleanses and calms her.
She feels better. Stronger. Her hands tremble slightly as she rearranges the books and pulls the bin bag with the photos into an awkward knot, but she no longer feels like wailing to the moon and the stars.
Someone who has never known love is not a good choice for someone who was only just healing from the earthquake of another, she sees this now. She gave him a second chance and he does not deserve a third, however much she wants to just throw it at him and make him take it.
She has heard from him everyday since she slammed into him, and she has never gotten back to him. Space is good. She's a shipwreck, but at least she can heal; he can grow up, mature, learn love. Maybe actually make her happy one day.
AN: Finally starting to feel a little less rusty... though must admit, entering a competition for the first time in a long time does happen to freak me out. SO, wish me luck! Reviews and favourites are as ever, massively appreciated :) x