I always felt like Ron/Hermione just weren't right, and now J.K. has confirmed it herself. So this is for all you Harry/Hermione shippers.
Disclaimer: If only I owned Harry Potter.
Escape.
The single thought plays through her mind like a mantra as she swishes through the tall grass, pace too fast, stomach too unsettled. For a moment, she's afraid she's going to vomit, and she almost stops to retch. But she presses on, letting the field tickle her exposed legs. There's a trail left in her wake, dark and empty in comparison to the sea of gold surrounding it, though it slowly creeps back to its mold.
Escape escape escape.
When she unconsciously decides that she's gone far enough, she throws herself down and relishes in her invisibility. He won't find her here, or at least he won't care to.
Rubbing her hands across her face, she tries to steady her breathing. These moments of panic and desperation, of screamed harsh words, have become all too familiar, and for a moment she's washed by a flood of anger at the fact they couldn't preserve this day.
It's beyond quiet out here, quiet and dark with the voices and lights of the house far away, her only companions the little twinkles above. Here there are thousands upon thousands of them, it seems, but she chooses to focus her attention on one; it's oddly shaped and keeps blinking brightly.
Perhaps, on second thought, perhaps it isn't a star at all. Perhaps her choice was wrong.
"Granger," he snarls, and she wishes with all her might that there had been room at another table.
"Trust me, Malfoy, I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't have to." She had scoured the room, slowing her steps just to make sure she wasn't overlooking an empty seat, but the only one had been at his table.
He scowls, like usual, but doesn't put up any more of a fight. "Just stay on your side," he growls, as he buries his head in his paper.
They're both quiet, focused on their work, and she eventually forgets that he's sitting across from her. It's when she's scratched out a word five times and written a new one, only to scratch at that one as well that she remembers him.
"Demanding."
Preparing a stinging retort, she glances up sharply with it ready on her lips. "What?"
He nods towards her tattered essay. "Demanding. That's the word you're looking for."
She thinks that she should be mad that he was reading her essay without permission, but on second thought, she had been making quite the racket with her scratching. And upon reading her sentence, she realizes that he'd actually been helpful. "Thank you," she says, a bit timidly at the foreign words, unwilling to meet his eye.
He doesn't respond verbally, instead nods again, and goes back to work.
He's peaceful, she thinks, allowing herself to study him. His brow furrows when he thinks hard, furrows but not in the same way as when he scowls at her. He has a strong jaw, a strong cheek, and when he isn't scowling, he's almost handsome.
She blushes at the thought, going back to her work, and never sits with him again.
She's only been there for about ten hours, and she's supposed to have been asleep for four of them, but she already knows that 12 Grimmauld Place creaks and moans during the night. As does her bed, which protests loudly with her every toss and turn.
"Ginny," she whispers, partially hoping the younger girl won't answer. "Ginny...are you awake?"
There's a rustled of sheets and a sharp inhale. "Yes," she replies groggily.
"I—I went out of the country this summer."
Ginny's bright, and even with her brain still asleep, she quickly figures out the unspoken words. In the dark, she sees the younger girl prop herself up on her elbow. "How was it?"
"It was lovely," she says honestly after some thought. "His home was nice, and his parents were kind. Even if they couldn't pronounce my name."
"Yes, but how was it," Ginny urges, and she's surprised the redhead hasn't vacated her bed yet.
"I...I certainly admire him." She doesn't know exactly what it was like, but she's certain that her feelings are more than friendly. She'd enjoyed the way he'd paid attention to everything she'd said, the way he'd taken her to Muggle towns and allowed her to show him around, the way they had laughed.
She knows that if she had anything more than friendly feelings, for him, she wouldn't still have the pressure of his lips on hers. She wouldn't have a head that was still spinning.
If it were anything more than friendly feelings, her stomach wouldn't skip when a letter from Bulgaria arrived a week later, and she wouldn't be writing back so quickly.
She should have known better at Bill's and Fleur's wedding, when her stomach had been flightly and ready to explode, when she had sweated profusely—it had been so long—but thankfully no one had noticed. For whatever reason, she's taken aback and impressed with his kindness, especially considering how she hadn't seen him since that summer, and finds his smile so inviting. She wants for a moment for them to disappear, but she suppresses that notion.
She especially wants it when he pulls her away for a dance. She should have known better when that little gnawing feeling of irritation had tugged at her conscience. Who was he to decide with whom she did and didn't mingle? What gave him that right?
The war comes and goes, and she thinks she loves him. Thrust into the midst of tragedy and mayhem, she grapples for something solid.
She should have known she wouldn't find solid with him.
She's never been a crier, but cries when he's with another girl, and she cries when he leaves. She cries when he comes back, but late at night so that neither of them sees. She cries when her home of six years is in ruins, again where no one sees, and she cries when she thinks they'll be together. When he tells her he loves her. When they fight. Always when they fight.
For a while it had been good, but then again, aren't all relationships good for a while?
And then they become like the sea and the shore, forever retreating and crashing into each, sometimes harder than others. They always come back to each other, but that doesn't seem to make it any better. Not really. In a way, it makes it worse.
In what had been probably their longest, saddest stretch, she finds herself craving the affection of someone, anyone, who doesn't get defensive of everything.
Which is how she finds herself in the room of the ex-nemesis after a particularly embarrassing meeting, tearing away one another's clothing, fighting for the right to feel skin that doesn't belong to them. He's bulked up since school, or at least gained back all he had lost when they were sixteen, and her hands rove over every curve and crevice they can find. She loses her fingers in his soft platinum hair, and almost laughs at the fact that she of all people is messing it.
He leaves a fiery trail of kisses from her mouth to her shoulder and up again, he pulls her body close to his, and she tells herself that this isn't real. He presses himself to her, and before she can catch herself, she moans his name. "Draco."
After they're done, he kisses her squarely on the lips for a long while. She catches his eye, but only for a moment; she drops it quickly when her stomach churns. Don't do that, stupid, she scolds herself. Don't do that, or you'll ruin everything.
He sleeps with his arm around her naked waist and his face buried in her hair, she with her fingers mingled with his, back against his chest. It feels so soothing and strange that she falls asleep wondering if it had really happened.
Somewhere behind her, the door to the house clicks open and shuts behind whoever had exited. There's no other sound for a moment, and she can feel them looking for her, but she makes no effort to give away her spot. She knows who it is.
Eventually there's the swish of grass, much slower than it had been with her, calm and sure. Whoever it is must be at least detailed enough to have noticed the bald patch in the middle of the field. He lays down beside her.
"I'm sorry I ruined your birthday."
He gives her a look like she's just suggested they both ride a unicycle. "You couldn't do that if you tried."
"I've done something terrible," she sobs, "oh, Harry, I've done something terrible."
It's the night before his wedding. She should be making sure that he's getting the proper rest, or that all the details of the following day are ironed out. Instead, she has him corralled on his couch while she has a meltdown.
"Hermione," he says gently, disbelieving and trusting. Always. "I'm sure you haven't done anything this terrible."
It's the night before his wedding, and he's spending it consoling her. If it doesn't attest to his character, she doesn't know what does. "I have—"
"What could you have possibly done?"
"I slept—I slept…" She presses her hand to her mouth to keep back the sob that still escapes.
It had been like the stars had aligned perfectly for one brief moment. It had been so intimate, so raw, and she had loved it. That's the worst part. She doesn't regret it, she misses it.
"Hermione." He puts a hand over hers. "Just tell me."
"I slept with Draco." She doesn't think to wonder why she called him by that name, it just feels natural. Actually, she doesn't think at all, the words just sort of tumble out.
He's shocked, that much is evident, but shocked as if he had just learned Professor McGonagall was only fifty-two, not as if she had told him she never showered. "You slept with him? Like...you two—"
"Yes, Harry," she sighs, suddenly exasperated and regretting her confession. Why does she always do the stupidest things? And why, more importantly, does he always put up with them?
She wishes she'd never done it. She wishes with all her might that they could get their act together, for them to grow up and act like the sensible adults that they were; so they could just snap at each other, feel a few seconds of guilt, and then apologize. And mean it. Then this whole ordeal would never have happened. She wishes she'd never spoken of it, so that this mess could have not been a mess, but a moment in time to push to the back of her mind and never be thought of again.
She closes her eyes and counts to ten, and when she opens them, he's still there.
She looks at him for a long while, only able to smile at him, the warmth of his hand on hers too overpowering. "You never would have made it in Slytherin."
He laughs. "I never would have had you two."
He laughs, and she relishes the sound. Once upon a time, it had come so readily that she'd simply grown used to it; he laughed when they bickered, he laughed when they made fun of Snape, he laughed when the twins pulled a prank. He had laughed so readily that she'd taken it for granted. Slowly it had dwindled, and even now that things were better, it was still almost foreign sound.
She knows her own laugh is.
When she next opens her eyes, she's doing so reluctantly, and peeling herself away from a hard, comfortable warmth, very dazed and trying to remember the last thing she had done the night before. Her neck is cramping, and her hand is asleep, but for some muddled reason, she doesn't regret it.
There had been Harry. And crying. They had been on his couch, and…
She takes in the hard warmth beneath her and bolts straight up, managing to wake him in the process. He peers at her through groggy eyes, glasses halfway off his face. "—mione?"
"Wake up," she cries, flinging herself from his couch and tangling her fingers in her hair before she can run them halfway through. Oh, for Merlin's sake… "Harry, you have to get dressed. It's your wedding day. Get up, get up, get up!"
And just like that, she has him in the shower, and she's casting every spell she knows to get them both decently ready. Just like that, her best friends are married, and they don't speak of the night ever again.
She watches the star, how it flickers between being bright and dim, and she thinks to her own wedding day, the way the doubt had passed back and forth through her mind, and how she ignored it, and how she ended up here.
Once upon a time, they had been happy, and that had fallen away. And once upon a time, they had been happy again. The cycle had repeated over and over, always the same, yet always leaving her a little more tired each time.
They had all been at her wedding, and she had caught two of their gazes accidentally, letting her eyes linger until she felt sick. She had looked away with a dazzling, blissful smile, hoping eventually she would convince herself that she had made the right choice.
"What if...what if I didn't?" she asks, barely over a whisper.
"You didn't what?"
"What if I didn't make the right choice?"
She lets brown fall on green, hoping with every ounce of her being that he'll assure her she did, but instead of reassurance, all she receives is a terrible sinking feeling. It's his birthday, and he's missing his own party to lay in the field under the stars with her while she contemplates her past mistakes. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't need to; brown on green, she has her answer.