Draco Malfoy sluggishly ambled down the stairs in the dim light shining from his wand. His hand clutched the banister and he ran a distracted hand through his hair as he entered the kitchen. As he slumped into a chair at the table he not so delicately dropped his head onto the surface with a defeated groan.
"Merlin, I am so fucked." He grumbled. Draco slowly rolled his head to the side so that he could see the table in its entirety. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply as though preparing to hold his breath and then released the accumulated air slowly out into the dark kitchen. His eyes drifted to the bowl of fruit on the table and he pushed his chair back so that he could lean forward and pull it toward him.
Draco coolly observed the various fruits in the bowl. Oranges, bananas, peaches, pears, and nestled in the bottom was a lone green apple. Draco fished the apple out and held it up to his eyes. "You are now my personal psychiatrist. Help."
The apple sat silently in his palm.
Draco lowered the apple and sighed "Sweet Merlin, she's driving me insane. I'm consulting an apple for professional help."
The apple remained in Draco's hand but it seemed to speak to him. "Well, since you've already asked, what is your major malfunction?"
He paused and stared at the apple. He wasn't exactly expecting an answer from it when he started talking to the apple. He supposed that it was his brain filling in for the apple's lack of vocal cords. Yes, that must be it. He shrugged his shoulders and placed the apple on the table, crossing his arms. "It's not like I'm certifiably insane. Well, I suppose some might consider me to be. What on earth was I thinking? I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass to date one of the Harry Potter's best friends. I didn't know that I'd get this attached though! I didn't think I would…" Draco fell silent as he realized what he had been about to say.
The apple waited patiently before appearing to inquire, "You didn't think you would what?"
He leveled his gaze at the apple. "Alright, I'm going to tell you something and you have to swear not to tell anyone else because I've never said this aloud. I love Hermione. And not like 'Oh my goodness you're such a good friend, I love you so much' kind of love. It's definitely an 'I want to snog the life out of you and never let any other man near you because you belong to me' kind of love. I am in love with Hermione Jean Granger."
The apple remained silent. It had resided in the produce isle of the grocery store for about a week before it arrived in Draco's kitchen and it had picked up quite a few things there. For instance, the apple was fairly sure that the psychology book the produce manager had been reading from stated that it was much better to let people talk things through themselves than interrupt to make comments. So the apple held it's tongue (well, it hypothetical tongue) and waited for Draco to continue.
He paused once more as though waiting for the apple to make some snooty comment about his sudden sappiness. Once he realized that the apple was not going to be forthcoming with its opinions, he closed his eyes and soldiered on. "You know I went out and got a ring a few weeks ago. I knew that I wanted to be with her, but I wasn't sure she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. We've been together for almost two years now. I don't know how relationships are supposed to work, when the proper time to do things is and what the best things to say are. Well, I don't know how healthy relationships are supposed to work. I could write a bloody 'How to' guide on unhealthy relationships. That all my life had been made up of until the war ended. The only half decent relationship I ever had was with my mother and…well, we know how stable that relationship was."
"Well it's not like you can be blamed for your less than optimal relationships in the past. Yes, you might have had some impact on the way that they turned out, but other things caused the majority of the issues. I would say that dealing with Voldemort and his merry band of death-obsessed followers would be a plausible reason for some of your relationship woes." The apple was getting a little bit frustrated. It was now quiet convinced that Draco must have received one too many blows to the head during his teenage years and that he was going to be a total downer until someone beat it into his thick skull that he wasn't a piece of crap who didn't deserve any happiness.
Draco opened his eyes and pulled himself up from the table to walk towards the muggle refrigerator. "Well I've obviously had some part in those screwed up relationships!" Opening the door, he peered in before closing it with a huff. "Merlin, that woman… I swear, she just… It's ridiculous!" He waved his hand at the muggle contraption. "She's even got these bloody things all over my house! And it's not like they just sit there whenever she's not here. I actually watch the telly now. I even bought one of those ridiculous muggle cell phones. The ones with all the touch screen things and weird games about pigs being attacked by birds." Draco flounced back to the table and sat down with a huff. "It's like she doesn't even realize how much I care about her. Sure, Hermione knows I've mellowed out a bit since the war and can now suffer through a few hours in the company of Weaselette when she invites her over for dinner without going mad, but it goes so much farther than that!"
The apple considered Draco's last statement. "Have you ever actually told her how much she means to you or did you just figure that she picked up on your weird subliminal messaging? How far are you willing to go for her?"
He leveled his gaze at the apple once more. "I would move mountains for her. Hell, I'd even put up with Saint Potter and his entourage for the rest of my life. I've never wanted something so badly in my life as much as I want to be with her. If she told me that she would be with me for the rest of my life….well, there isn't anything I wouldn't do to get that. I would kill to be with her, but… I'm not sure that she should be with me. You've seen her. She the smartest and boldest person I know. Hell, she could probably fly she's so fearless. She'd just tell the world that gravity has no effect on her and it would have to listen because she's Hermione Granger and she gets shit done."
There was silence for a few moments. Then the apple said, "She's been with you for five years now. Do you honestly think that a person as intelligent as her would be stupid enough to stay in a relationship that she didn't want to be in?"
Draco looked a little shocked. "Well, I…She's…I didn't…That's not what I meant! I just meant that she…um…that she might not…" He trailed off and fixed his hazy gaze on a small scratch on the kitchen table.
A few moments later he looked back up. "I've been totally ridiculous haven't I?"
The apple remained silent once again and Draco would have sworn that if a fruit could look smug, that apple would have looked like the cat that caught the proverbial canary.
Draco stood up. "I see what you've been getting at. You're trying to make me see that I shouldn't be doubting myself. I love Hermione and she loves me. Otherwise, why would we have made it as a couple for five years even after all of the gossip and skepticism that we had to go through in the first place. You're making me say that I love Hermione Granger, that I will always love her, and that I want to marry her whether her friends and the public approve of it or not."
The apple would have clapped if it had hands. "Bravo Draco. You've finally figured it out. I was hoping that you would realize the obvious it sooner but it seems that you've figured it out just fine at your own pace."
Draco glared at the apple. "Well there's no need to be all snooty about it. I got it eventually."
The apple ignored his last comment and asked, "So what's your plan now?"
Draco moved to the drawer nearest to the telephone that Hermione had persuaded him to get. He reached in and pulled out the ring he had purchased a few days before. Staring at the ring for a moment, he swung around to fix the apple with a determined look. "Alright then, I'm going to take this ring, come up with some sort of grand gesture or something and then I'm staying with her for as long as she'll have me, damn the consequences." With a set jaw, Draco clutched the ring box and set out up the stairs to finalize his plan.
Content with the resolution that had been reached, the apple remained sitting on the table in the place that Draco had left it. It couldn't move itself of course, but it was just fine where it was so it didn't matter anyway. It was merely happy to have been able to help someone who was obviously in dire need of some assistance and use the information that it had gotten from the produce managers textbook. It wasn't every day that an apple got to put its book learning to use, and this one was pleased that it had managed something that many other apples had never gotten a chance to do. Satisfied with its work for the day, the apple decided to resume its normal apple duties and oblige itself to the next hungry person who passed through the kitchen.
I didn't even know I had this on my computer until I went through my WIP fanfics folder at 3 o'clock this morning. Apparently I wrote it during exam week of last year in the wee hours of the morning so it's been a while. I thought I'd go ahead and post it because I figure at least one person on the internet might find it entertaining. This isn't the greatest thing I've written but it also isn't the worst which is saying something because part of this story was sort of told from the point of view of a piece of fruit. In case you were wondering, I threw the rating under T because there's a few "fuck"s and "shit"s scattered around in there. Hope you found it entertaining.