Rhythm of the Rain
Pairing: D/Hr
Disclaimer: Shh, I borrowed the characters while JKR was sleeping.
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Four hours ago, she had been excited. Three hours ago, she had been nervous. Two and a half hours ago, she had been worried, and two hours ago, she had been furious. Now, though, she was just resigned. Walking in the rain for an hour had stained her new dress, ruined her favorite shoes, and turned her hair into a certifiable natural disaster, but it had also helped her make up her mind. This time she meant it: she was ready to break up with Draco Malfoy.
She had imagined this night having a very different ending. This was, after all, supposed to be the night she and Draco finally cemented their relationship. It might have started out as just shagging back in seventh year, but they had actually started going on real dates after graduation, and she had thought they were moving forward to the next step. He already had keys to her apartment and she had been cleared through the wards at Malfoy manor so she could apparate in at any time. She kept his favorite brand of coffee on hand even though she never drank the stuff, and he had made room amongst all his hair gels and shaving supplies for her toiletries kit. They had started checking in with each other before making weekend plans and friends on both sides had stopped asking when this phase was going to be over. Her parents had wanted to meet him and when she asked him if he would join them for dinner, he had said yes, and had made seven o'clock reservations for four at the Golden Wand, their favorite restaurant. Tonight was the night.
At six o'clock, she had been happy and excited as she slipped into the new dress she had bought for the occasion, and spritzed herself with the perfume she knew Draco liked. At seven, she had been nervous as she seated herself at the table with her parents, ordering a bottle of wine and some appetizers while they waited for Draco to arrive, anticipating the moment when she would introduce her parents to the man she loved. When he hadn't shown up by seven thirty, she had started to worry, afraid that something might have happened. These fears were laid to rest and replaced with anger at eight o'clock when an owl arrived with a note from Draco saying that he wouldn't be able to make it, and that they should go ahead and eat without him.
Once dinner was over, she put her parents in a cab with a fake smile on her face, and started to walk home, ignoring the pouring rain. The walk gave her a chance to sort through what she was feeling. Her own feelings, she knew without question. She was in love with Draco, and had been for the longest time. He drove her up the wall on a consistent basis; he was obnoxious and arrogant and far too spoiled and never, ever passed up the opportunity to say something rude or snarky to aggravate Harry and Ron; he teased Crookshanks and made messes in the kitchen and left the toilet seat up even when he was only in the bathroom to brush his teeth just to annoy her; and she, fool that she was, couldn't get enough of him.
He was intelligent and charming and genuinely sweet, when there was no one around to notice. He liked to snuggle though he'd never admit it, choosing instead to hog the blankets and pillows and most of the mattress as well so she had no choice but to snuggle up right next to him without him having to ask for it. He knew her schedule backwards and forwards and she'd often come back to her desk after an aggravating meeting to find that he had left a box of chocolates on her chair to cheer her up. And whenever he looked at her, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that regardless of the opinions of the rest of the world, he found her beautiful and desirable.
He was easy to love, and she hadn't even tried to stop herself from falling for him. But now she found herself starting to wonder if her love for him had been so blinding that it had kept her from noticing that it was one-sided. Had she simply assumed that Draco wanted to be with her just because she wanted so badly to be with him? Did he take their relationship seriously at all, or was she just a pleasant way to pass the time? Her stomach clenched with nausea at the thought that their whole relationship might be nothing more than an unusually prolonged fling.
Her brilliant mind worked against her as her analytical side took in all the evidence: his initial insistence back in their Hogwarts days that their relationship be nothing but sex, his reluctance to go out with her more than two or three nights a week, his hesitance when she first suggested the idea of meeting her parents, and his behavior over the past few weeks when he kept making excuses not to spend time with her all added up to that same, inevitable conclusion. He saw their relationship as nothing but a temporary amusement, and from the looks of things, the amusement had already begun to fade. When she thought they were becoming serious about each other, she was just fooling herself. She had been expecting him to tell her he loved her and he had been looking for an opening to tell her goodbye.
If that was what he wanted, she'd help him out. She had always despised girls who clung to their boyfriends so hard that they refused to see when the relationship was over. If Draco wanted an opening to get rid of her, she'd make it very easy for him. First thing in the morning, she'd call it quits. Her anger burned out as she imagined what it would be like when she told him goodbye, and all her childhood insecurities reared their ugly heads, telling her that when she ended it… he'd be relieved.
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She'd broken up with him through an owl. Yes, she knew it was a cowardly, un-Gryffindorian thing to do, but it was the safest way she could think of to call things off. Facing him in person was just too dangerous an option as long as she was uncertain that she would be able to resist the temptation to hex him. The resigned, broken-hearted mood of the night before had faded and been replaced, once again, with blazing anger.
He'd sent her roses. A massive bouquet of two dozen red roses, sitting on her desk when she arrived in at the office, along with a card saying "Sorry about last night. Let me make it up to you?" Bastard. She hated red roses. Anyone who knew her at all knew that. How was it that he didn't know? She knew what kind of toothpaste he used and that he was allergic to stinging waubeck plants which didn't even grow outside of Australia, and he couldn't be bothered to remember to send her any type of flower other than red roses. She tossed them in the rubbish bin, but not before she sent him a note by return owl saying that it obviously wasn't working between the two of them, and that she thought they should take a break and decide whether they really wanted to be together. Mentally praising herself for showing such restraint in her wording, she sent off the owl, thinking that that would be the last of it.
She should have known better. Malfoy, irregardless of his countless faults, undoubtedly possessed the virtue of persistence. He was not just a bastard, but a stubborn bastard. The poor owl was back at her desk only fifteen minutes after it left with another note demanding to know where this nonsense of "taking a break" had come from. She didn't reply. He sent another owl fifteen minutes later, saying that it couldn't possibly take her that long to formulate an answer, so what was the hold-up, and what on earth was the matter with her office floo connection? She smiled a little in satisfaction as she glanced over at her thoroughly blockaded floo, but didn't reply. He sent another owl ten minutes later saying that ignoring him wasn't going to make him go away. Six more owls came in the next hour, each holding a more exasperated and exasperating note from Malfoy. She ignored them all.
The next owl to arrive seemed to be having trouble with his wing. Angry though Hermione was with Malfoy, she wasn't about to let an innocent animal suffer just because the poor thing had the misfortune to belong to Malfoy, so she immediately started looking for the source of the trouble, finding a pin that had accidentally entrapped itself in the bird's feathers. Clucking in sympathy, Hermione slid her fingers around the pin, swiftly pulling it out. She was about to drop the pin onto her desk when she felt a tight, pulling sensation around her navel as the room started to spin.
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When it grew steady again, she found herself standing in the library at Malfoy manor, facing a furious Draco Malfoy. Her first instinct was to apparate, but it only took her a second to tell he had modified the wards. Another of his dubious virtues: he was thorough. After going through all the trouble to trick her into portkeying to him, he wasn't about to let her get away just yet.
"What the hell is this?" he shouted, waving a piece of parchment in her face. She instantly recognized the note she had sent him that morning.
"That's your escape hatch," she answered shortly, biting off the words as she fought the urge to scream… or cry. "Since you so obviously want out of this relationship, I thought I'd make it easy for you. No need to thank me, just let me out of here."
"I am not letting you out of here until you tell me what is going on! And what on earth makes you think I want an escape hatch out of our relationship?"
"Don't do this, Draco," Hermione hissed through clenched teeth. "Don't fucking pretend you don't know what this is about. I'll admit, it took me a while to figure it out, but I finally got the message, alright? If you didn't want to meet my parents—"
"I apologized for that!" Draco interjected. Hermione kicked up her glare another few notches and continued as if she hadn't been interrupted.
"—you should have said something instead of letting me think that you… that we…" Hermione cut herself off. If she went any further on this train of thought, she'd start blurting out that she loved him and was heartbroken that he didn't love her back and she wasn't about to pour her heart out like that to him.
"And then to apologize," she shifted quickly, turning to a subject it was much easier for her to be angry about, "you sent me red roses. I hate red roses! How many times have I told you that?"
"Roses?" Draco stated, sounding confused. "But I didn't— never mind. Listen, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about last night and I'm sorry about the roses, but that's no reason for us to split up. Don't you think you're overreacting?"
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Draco cringed. He knew that telling Hermione In A Temper that she was overreacting was roughly the equivalent of practicing incendio spells near Weasley's Wild-Fire Whiz-Bangs: explosive didn't even begin to describe it.
"Overreacting?" she said in a frighteningly calm voice. "Over. Reacting. Is that what you think this is?"
"I didn't mean it," Draco threw in wildly, trying to head off her explosion. "I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry twice, three times, as many times as you'd like!"
Hermione paused and tilted her head to the side, seemingly considering something. "No," she answered. "You're not. You're apologizing to pacify me, but you're not really sorry. You can't be really sorry since you don't understand what you're apologizing for. You have no idea how I felt last night. But you will."
Hermione whipped out her wand and Draco flinched in spite of himself, but to his surprise, she didn't point the wand at him but at the walls of the room and then at herself. He caught some muttered protection and shielding charms and wondered what on earth she was doing when she raised her wand one more time, pointed it to the ceiling, spoke a single, forceful word and watched in satisfaction as the ceiling of the library began to pour down rain.
It wasn't until Draco felt the rainwater drip into his open mouth that he realized his jaw was hanging open. He closed it with a snap. "What?" he sputtered. "Why? How?"
"What and how can be answered together," Hermione replied. "It's a fairly simple charm. Don't worry, I cast a protection spell on everything in the room except for you." Under other circumstances, Draco might have smile as he saw that this was, indeed, true. He knew Hermione would never risk anything that might damage books. Damaging him, apparently, was quite another matter.
"And as for why," Hermione stepped closer, until she was very nearly close enough to touch, and gave the rest of her answer in a voice barely above a whisper. "The 'why' is because I spent an hour walking through the rain last night after you stood me up wondering why it hurt so badly that you didn't want to meet my parents. It took the whole hour before I finally realized: I wasn't upset that you stood us up; I was upset that you didn't want to be with me anymore. You've been pushing your way out of our relationship for weeks and it wasn't until last night that I realized it." Draco showed an inclination to open his mouth to reply, but Hermione cut him off before he got a chance.
"Don't try telling me you've had to put more hours in at work. It's just an excuse, Draco, and we both know it. Don't insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise. So I got home last night and threw my favorite shoes and brand new dress in the rubbish bin when I realized they'd been ruined by the rain and decided that today was the day I'd let you go. I was trying to make it easy on both of us. But you'd never do anything the easy way, would you? So fine, you want to make this complicated? Deal with this complication. Stand here in the rain for the next hour and contemplate exactly how you made me feel last night. Only then will I believe you if you tell me you're sorry for breaking my heart."
Spinning on her heel, Hermione headed for the exit. Draco might have blocked her from apparating within the house, but once she got outside, she'd be able to apparate off the ground. She couldn't stay here another minute. If she did, Draco might realize that the water slipping off of her face wasn't rain, but tears.
"I love you."
The words stopped her in her tracks.
"W-what did you say?" she asked without turning around, her voice shaking in spite of her best efforts to keep it steady.
"I said that I love you." Draco's voice was clear and steady with no hesitation, no shakiness, no pause, and no indication that this was the first time he had said those words, not just to her, but to anyone. "I've loved you since the first time you let me touch you, back in seventh year, and it scares the living daylights out of me. I was convinced I wouldn't be able to have you for long, so I tried to stop myself from loving you. While we were at Hogwarts, I tried to tell myself that I didn't need anything from you but sex. When I couldn't convince myself of that anymore, I told myself I only needed to see you a few times a week. I tried not to need you more than that, to force myself not to be with you all the time so I could convince myself that when you ended things between us, I'd be able to do without you."
Slowly, Hermione turned to face him. He was completely drenched, hair hanging in his eyes and designer robes utterly ruined, but his silver eyes were focused solely on her, totally ignoring the rain that continued to fall around him.
"When you told me you wanted me to meet your parents, I realized you were serious about this relationship and that maybe, just maybe, you might feel the same way about me that I feel about you. It threw my world out of whack. I never thought you'd love me, and I had some trouble dealing with it. That's why I've been so distant lately. I'll admit I handled it badly. But I'm not used to be being loved, and I didn't know how to respond. I was afraid of doing something to screw it all up. Last night, I was so nervous about meeting your parents that I drank an entire bottle of firewhiskey to calm myself down. Instead, I managed to knock myself out. When I came to, it was already eight o'clock, and I knew I was in no position to make a good impression on your parents."
"By the time I slept off the firewhiskey and got out of here this morning, I only had five minutes before a board meeting. I scribbled down the note and passed it off to my assistant, telling her to owl it to you along with an order of violets. She must have decided I was being cheap and chosen to upgrade my flower order to red roses. I usually handle your flower deliveries myself, so she had no way of knowing that you don't like red roses. I was planning to buy another bunch of violets and head over to your office around lunchtime to beg your forgiveness in person, but then I got your note."
Hermione was standing so quietly that Draco finally worked up the nerve to approach her. "I don't want an escape hatch out of our relationship," he said softly. "I never did. I want to be with you more than anything in the world. Please believe me when I say I am sorry if I ever made you doubt that for even an instant. Can you ever forgive me?"
Draco held his breath while he waited for her answer. He wasn't expecting her to close off the distance between the two of them and throw herself in his arms. He stood there, shocked, for a few long moments before his brain started working again. His face broke into an enormous grin even as he tried to detangle her arms where they were wrapped around him.
"Sweetheart, don't," he scolded gently. "I'm drenched, you'll get soaked through. Your protection spell won't work if you hold on to me like this."
"I don't care," she replied stubbornly, her words muffled against his neck where she had buried her face. "I love you, and I'm not letting go." Muttering something about stubborn, beautiful, wonderful witches, Draco wrapped his arms around her in return, shielding her from the rain as much as he could. She snuggled against him with a sigh of contentment, turning her head to rest her cheek against his chest.
"I love violets," she said, placing a kiss on the hand that rose to stroke her hair.
"I know," he answered, smiling.
"And I love you," she continued, raising herself up on tiptoe to plant a soft kiss on Draco's lips.
"I know," he answered, his smile turning smug. "Alright, alright," he relented when she pretended to pout. "I love you, too. And I want to meet your parents. Really, I do. How about owling them to see if they can meet us for dinner tonight?"
"No," Hermione stated firmly, beginning to unbutton his sodden robes. "We'll be busy tonight." Draco gasped as she insinuated her leg between his, raising it to rub firmly against his crotch.
"Right," Draco answered in a somewhat choked voice. "Not tonight. Tomorrow, then?"
"Tomorrow, you'll still be healing from everything I plan to do to you, tonight."
"Lovely," Draco replied, his voice about an octave higher than usual. "I'll just let you chose the date then, shall I?"
"Good idea," Hermione agreed, capturing his mouth to prevent any further replies. There were a great many things she wanted to do with her boyfriend-who-loved-her and talking was decidedly not one of them, especially since his hands were becoming active as well, shifting away the aggravating layers of her own clothing. Within moments, they were naked and writhing in beautiful harmony together on the floor and it took all of Draco's concentration to muster enough brainpower to speak one last time.
"Um, sweetheart? Do you think you could turn off the rain now?"