Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.
Author's Note: Set after book five and completely disregards books six and seven. They are a few months into their sixth year.
Need
"She came here every night. Draco found her on this one."
She knew Harry and Ron had yet to find out.
But she preferred it that way. This was something all hers, and if they knew, it wouldn't be the same. Here was where she breathed sanity.
Here was the Great Hall. Only this time, it wasn't just a regular day of breakfast or lunch or study hall. The moon outside illuminated banners hanging just before the windows, and the light filtered into the hall in compartments, broken apart by the frames of the windows, that landed upon the tables in an oddly settling way to her. Hermione sat in her usual spot at the Gryffindor table, where the dim light from the moon could not fully reach her face. She knew it was well past one in the morning.
She somehow found herself here every night without fail. She would creep through the halls of the castle with a stealth that surprised even her, avoiding any prefects or wandering professors making rounds. Over the last three months back at Hogwarts it had become a skill she hardly thought about anymore. She would make it to the door of the Great Hall and slink inside quietly, noiselessly. Before she made another move, she would stand there, staring at the long House tables, the Head table, the banners above, the wide expanse of ceiling with its lines and shadows, and just breathe; take in a breath and expel it slowly into the space before her, filling the atmosphere with her. Every night she would make her way over to the Gryffindor table and take a seat.
Hermione couldn't even remember how this habit of hers started, only that it got her through most days, and every night. Sometimes she would lay her head down upon the table and just stay there, breathing in silence, feeling the wood beneath her hands and cheek. Oftentimes, she would find herself asleep there at the table and would wake in time to return to her dorm unnoticed. Other nights she would hum to herself, straddling the bench beneath her, as to look through the windows before her as she softly sang to herself some song she didn't even realize she had known.
Hermione couldn't remember if she ever came here and just cried. Probably not. The moment she cried here was the moment its importance was lost on her. Most days she just sat there. Thinking. Watching. Breathing. Those nights she was only here for maybe an hour at most.
Then there were times, very rarely, when the day before had weighed too heavily on her, she would speak to the emptiness around her. And not as if it were an actual being, but as if Harry and Ron were sitting right there with her. She would turn to Harry and offer him some butter for his toast, and smile when he would take it in thanks. She'd turn back to Ron, who would sit in front of her, and reprimand him for chewing with his mouth open, but she couldn't help being amused at the sounds he would emit. Those were the times she really needed this place. Like tonight.
And that was how Draco Malfoy had found her, speaking to the air as if Golden Boy was there with her, all alone in the Great Hall, in the middle of the bleeding night.
Of course, he reminded himself that he was up in the middle of the night as well. The dormitories were sometimes too small to hold a person's thoughts, and he would sneak from his room and wander the halls. He didn't do it often, only when he couldn't sleep, which, he admitted to himself, had been happening more and more frequently as of late. Though he had never thought to venture into the Great Hall until tonight. A whim maybe. So he had opened the door soundlessly, ready to walk in and look around a bit, when he had spotted a lone figure sitting at the Gryffindor table. He stopped in the doorway and squinted to make out the person. He was surprised to find it was Hermione Granger. He watched her for a moment, the motion of her hands as she pretended it was the morning and she was lathering her scone with butter and reading some obscenely large textbook. He watched her mouth move to form some sort of words he couldn't hear from his position. There was something strangely calming about her movements, something so normal. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door to continue watching. From his vantage point, she almost looked happy.
Hermione still had not noticed Draco, and continued to act as if she were there with her friends, talking about some insanely long essay Snape had assigned them that morning. It was comforting to know that there were still such trivial things for them to gripe about.
Ever since the incident in the Ministry last year, there was the ever-looming threat of another attack, another death. It had been something sharp and apparent their first few days back at Hogwarts, fresh with the reality of Sirius' death that always hung at the forefront of their minds, Harry's especially. Hermione had not known what to do, which only served to unsettle her more. Over time, that ready fear of Death Eaters and ambushes had settled into a dull, throbbing sense of foreboding. None of them were jumpy anymore, at least not to the same extent, but they were all still clearly aware of the threat that lay silently just outside their castle walls.
Hogwarts was a safe place for Harry, for Ron and Ginny and all the others as well. They didn't even need assurances of strong wards and protection spells surrounding the towers. All they needed was that sense of home. Merely uttering the name Hogwarts put them all at such an ease that Hermione could not understand their blind faith in stone and mold. She was not given to such illusions She couldn't understand how they all could rest easily at night in the "comfort" of their beds. She had hardly touched her sheets since she arrived.
Hermione completely understood the severity of the game at which they were playing, all the close calls and near misses. And she would spend the day in quiet anticipation of what lay just around the next corner. She had no illusions about her safety. Safety was a luxury they could not afford. Being here in Hogwarts only served to keep them isolated from the world, something Hermione feared would be difficult to make to their advantage.
They all said she was naïve. Keeping her head in the books. Memorizing theories and ingredients and history. None of that could help them in real life experiences, real in-the-moment, each-decision-could-mean-death circumstances. That was what they had said. They were wrong. Naivety was simply something easily faked. Hermione never underestimated her enemy. Hermione looked at situations with as much severe objectivity as she could. And Hermione understood the power of what they were facing probably more than any of the others could claim to.
This wasn't some chess game in which they could afford to lose pieces. These were real people and lives and chances they were taking. This was a real war they were about to wage. Hermione had no doubts as to the tactics the enemy would use. And she also knew that they stood a fair chance at winning, because they would have no qualms about using under-handed ploys to get what they wanted. Her side was too self-righteous to do so. It was something Hermione was beginning to question. If she were completely honest with herself, she would have to say that she wasn't even in this to fight for what was good and what was right. Wrong and right was a grey area to her, even if there were some things she had no problem placing at the extreme ends of the spectrum. There were things even Hermione thought were unforgivable.
All she was in this for was keeping Harry and Ron alive. And as selfish as that sounded to her when she said it to herself it was the honest truth. It scared her a bit though, to know that if that troll had not come along in first year, she might not be fighting as hard as she does. Not that she would have joined in Voldemort's ranks, of course. Muggle-born Hermione never really had a choice to sides. Still, that didn't negate the fact that if she were just another Gryffindor, not a best friend to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, but simply a Muggle-born girl trying to find her way through the magical world, she probably would not be as dedicated to the cause.
And how surprised they would all be. To know that their little innocent Hermione wasn't as righteous as they thought, that maybe she never was, that maybe it was the naturally selfish wish of keeping the two people most important to her with her. But could they fault her that? She didn't think so. So she just let them believe what they would about her reasons for fighting, and gave them all the help she could humanly afford to give.
That was what brought her down here at nights, that need for normalcy, for that absence of the threat of death. Here, in the dark shadows and dim moonlight, she could hold tight to the memory of her friends, and bask in the relief that they had lived one more day than the last. She didn't know how they could wake up every morning and not fear that there wouldn't be another for them. It was all she did nowadays. Live in that fear, and retreat to the sanctuary of a place where she could grasp tightly to the hope of the next coming hours.
She never expected for Draco Malfoy to find it out though.
"Do you do this every night, Granger? Rave like a lunatic? Or am I just lucky enough to catch you tonight?"
Hermione's hand over the imaginary glass of pumpkin juice froze, and she closed her eyes slowly, disbelieving that someone, he especially, had found her. But she swallowed thickly and schooled her features to impassiveness before she decided to turn in her seat toward the source of the voice. He was leaning there against the slightly opened door, his arms crossed over his chest and the light coming through the window landing in slants upon his face and hair that made him seem so young to Hermione. So ignorant.
She was so swayed by the thought that she almost told him her reason for being here, before she swallowed back her reply and brought her hands to her skirt, smoothing it out with her fingers, her eyes on her movements. "What are you doing here, Malfoy?" She tried not to sound too agitated, because she just wanted him to leave so she could return to her room and forget that she ever came here at night.
"I could ask you the same question."
She heard his feet treading slightly upon the ground and looked up to find him walking toward her. He stopped at the end of the table, not six feet from her, and raised himself up to sit on the wood of the table. Hermione made a face, clearly disapproving of his choice not to sit on the bench. He caught it and smirked slightly, but stayed silent, waiting for her response.
Hermione was too exasperated with the day to actually comment on his lack of manners and too wary of him to get up and leave without finding out why he was here himself. She propped her elbows up onto the table and laid her arms down upon it.
"It's past curfew," she answered.
"As I'm sure we're both aware, Granger. No need to voice it."
"Then why are you up?"
He shrugged his left shoulder. "Can't sleep. You?"
She was a little confused by his conversational tone. "Same I guess."
He stared at her a moment and she was beginning to get irritated with his silence when he spoke finally.
"Are you that afraid?"
But it wasn't what she was expecting at all. "What?" She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to gauge his approach and understand the question.
"I said, 'Are you that afraid', Granger?"
"I heard you fine, Malfoy." She couldn't help the slight snap to her voice on that last one, but he didn't seem to care.
"Then answer the question." He was completely still sitting there upon the table, his eyes reading her through the weak light of the hall, his arms at his sides, palms holding him up against the wood. It was a little unsettling, to be sure, and Hermione had no idea how to talk to this Malfoy in the dark of the Great Hall at two in the morning with no one there to hear.
She cleared her throat for a moment and sat up a little straighter, some of her tangled hair falling upon her shoulder. "I don't understand the question," she admitted.
He had to take that opening. "Well, that's a first, isn't it, Granger?" He let out a small laugh.
But Hermione simply narrowed her eyes more and glared silently at him.
Draco let his smirk settle into something a little more serious, something a little foreboding to Hermione. He rested his eyes on hers and let out a barely audible sigh. "Are you that afraid of tomorrow?"
She could not have helped the look she was sure had crossed her face even if she had tried. There was complete confusion and astonishment fleeting across her features and for a moment she didn't think she could regain the power of her vocal cords. Of all the things she could have imagined him saying, this was something she had no idea how to answer, let only wrap her mind around. She opened her mouth slightly, almost as if the words would formulate themselves without her having to think about them, but she had stopped any sound from leaving her mouth and decided to just stare at him until he elaborated. Maybe that would give her enough time to come up with something. She pursed her lips in expectation.
He had seen her apparent surprise and let the question sink in a moment before deciding to go on. He turned his face to the window and caught sight of the clouds shadowing the moon in an almost comforting way. "It seems to me that you're holding onto something desperately. Afraid it's going to be ripped from your arms when you least expect it?" He looked back at her.
From her seat on the bench, there was a moment before she spoke again. "Of all the things I thought you to be, Draco Malfoy, perceptive was never one of them."
"Then I'm right?" He smirked down at her and there was an impish way to his smile that Hermione would remember for years to come.
She sighed and dropped her head to rest in her palms. She closed her eyes and imagined that she was alone again in here. "You wouldn't understand."
"Oh, I'm sure I wouldn't. You're way too bonkers for me to understand your reasons, Granger." He brought his arms from his sides to rest over his knees as he leaned forward.
Hermione opened her eyes and looked over to him. "I need this, Malfoy."
He was slightly surprised to hear that open and weary tone that he never would have applied to her voice. There was something so unexpectedly simple and unguarded in that confession that Draco found himself unable to speak for a good minute.
Hermione expelled a breath into the cool air and laid her head down onto her arms across the table, closing her eyes against the streak of moonlight filtering through to her side of the table. She didn't care anymore that she was completely vulnerable to him like this. "However long we can stay normal is time I will cherish for the rest of my life."
Draco narrowed his eyes at the way she laid that out for him to pick at, completely aware of the openings he could be taking to quip that she had never been "normal" really. But watching her there, her head resting on the table with her breaths coming slowly and softly, almost on the verge of sleep, he didn't think that something like that deserved to be taken apart. Even Draco Malfoy would say that there are some moments so clearly ethereal, that to bring them back down to earth with the starkness of who they were here would be wrong in some sense he couldn't understand. Sometimes, you're not supposed to remember that this is the girl you'd never give a second thought to taunt, the girl who represents the very ideals you're supposed to oppose. Sometimes, you remember that this is just a person.
And that was what kept Malfoy silent throughout the night as he watched Hermione Granger fall asleep upon the Gryffindor table, what made him get up and walk over to his seat at the Slytherin table across the hall from her. What made him understand perfectly exactly what she was saying and why it mattered so much.
He couldn't remember how long he sat there, watching Hermione sleep and thinking that she had never seemed so real to him before. All he remembered was waking up to find her gone and the beginnings of dawn starting to creep into the moon's territory, streaming through the windows in a warm illumination that made him want to stay there asleep forever, in the only place where he could grasp reality.