I've been feeling greatly inspired to write a Dramione/Tomione fan fiction because of (both) provocative envy and Serpent In Red.
PROLOGUE
OOO
The sky was quiet, it was grey, and it looked like the calm before the storm. The small, white room, had its equally proportionate window shoved open. The walls plastered no resemblance of the person residing inside. It was plain, white and boring. The blankets and pillows were strewn across the floor and the room was dark only the dark-lit sky offering some sort of light. It was that time of the day where the clouds had blocked the sun where it made it seem like the sky was night.
Hermione held tightly the sleek, silver cigarette lighter and slid her thumb across the top. The lights that were on, there bulbs suddenly became black and hollow. In her room it was dark and the wind was nipping at her skin. In a blink of an eye, the room was light and happy – and somehow stupidly opposite of what Hermione was feeling.
She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and then her top. Her lips were dry and her tongue was parched, and even her throat ached for her daily potion. Hermione wasn't even supposed to be here anymore. She was supposed to be out, trying to find Harry who seemed to have dropped off the face of the Earth after everything that happened.
It had been three months prior to the Battle of Hogwarts and one month after the funeral. She only remembered seeing him and conversing lightly about how beautiful Germany really was and how Quidditch was a little more exciting there than it had been at Hogwarts. She listened to him talk – she listened to him and how little his voice sounded – she listened when there wasn't really anything to talk about or reply to – she listened to him when he had said he was going to propose to Ginny at the end of her seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hermione had listened to him and once she finally got to speak, to tell him she was returning back to school – that she needed to go back to school – she couldn't get how his face looked out of her mind.
It had been singed in there and the look of anguish and disappointment haunted her every night after. She had to tell him she wasn't like him – that she wasn't like Ron – and he was angry because she couldn't, she wouldn't follow him along like a puppy. She wanted to finish her years at Hogwarts – she wanted, no – she craved a normal year.
How could he have not obliged after everything they, both, have gone through?
Her reverie was disrupted. An old nurse pulling in a small trolley with empty potion bottles except for one pale blue one. The nurse – the healer – had seen better days. She had graying black hair and wonderful blue eyes. She was handsome despite the scars that erupted against her cheeks, moving all the way down her chest and ended at the start of her bosom.
The room suddenly smelt of sterilization and she was reminded of the time she had gone to the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts and how Ron had called her name instead of Lavander's and how Lavander Brown got mad and threw a tantrum and how Hermione went to his side – in such a quick manner – and held his hand, rubbing her thumb along his forearm as he slept soundly. She even remembered him murmuring in his sleep. Something about spiders.
He looked like such a child when he slept. He looked so innocent and so at ease – even if there were dark circles under his eyes – he was beautiful in his own, rustic way.
Hermione grimaced; she grimaced at the smell, and as her heart ached so quickly – so suddenly, that an acrid taste clung to her saliva as she tried to swallow down the putrid taste. A quick glimpse into the past and she was already on her way to being nothing – to crumble right in front of the nurse who had seen worse causes – people with a very bad outcome, come tumbling in here.
"…, the new Headmistress from Hogwarts is sending someone to bring a letter to you today." Her voice was raspy. It was raspy and it somehow calmed down her aching nerves.
Hermione Granger looked at her healer with such a dumbfound look that it even made the nurse question what she had just said. But then the nurse continued and poured Hermione's potion in a ceramic mug and put it on her nightstand table. The mug was green.
"If it's anyone but that oaf of a giant—"
"His name is Hagrid." Hermione had interrupted sourly, crossing her arms over her chest. "That – oaf of a giant – is Hagrid."
Suddenly and so quickly and without any hesitation, Hermione had ran her thumb across the deluminator once more and the room had gone dark. She could smell the potion and it was intoxicating and it made her dizzy and her eyes heavy.
Hermione frowned and wrapped her hands around her waist once more and dug her nails into her skin – into her bones – until she winced. Until she cried out – until she calmed down and listened to the steps echo off the walls until she couldn't hear anyone anymore.
A strand of her curly, brown hair had fallen in front of her face and she moved her hand and put it behind her ear. Her heartbeat was beating loudly that she could feel her skin throb, her ears ache, and her brain pound. It was a deafening silence – thump, thump, thump – and she wanted to be able to listen to the wind – thump, thump, thump – and she wanted to hear something else, something other than her own heartbeat.
Something was knocking, something was sounding in the halls – footsteps, echoing off the walls. Off the navy blue tiles that had contrasted so differently with the white linoleum. The halls were so much more enchanting than the rooms patients resided in. They were wonderful and exciting. Not white and never boring. The lights illuminated off the blue tiles like the moon reflecting off the lake's water. The steps – they were matching the sound of her heartbeat. The way it pounded lazily, and loudly, and slowly, and it made her think – made her wonder – of who it could be.
Then the steps stopped and out of instinct the orbs of light reappeared in their designated spots. It was bright and she suddenly felt anxious about who could be standing behind that door. She hadn't wanted any visitors since her arrival. She begged the people who ran St. Mungo's to not let them see her. She simply did not want to be seen. Not by Ginny, not by Harry; not even by Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Three hard knocks and a very faint groan escaped this person's lips before the voice spoke up – before he spoke up. "Granger, I've got a letter waiting for you."
Hermione faintly noted that this voice was different from the regular voice's she heard lately, from what's she known. She struggled to get up, from the itchy spot on her bed and found herself unable to move, unable to respond, and to open the door.
She was silent.
She was quiet.
This was not Hermione Granger.
No, it was exactly like Hermione Granger who has, over the past few months, become mute, and numb to her surroundings – to people all around her.
"It's open." She said shakily and sat up and twirled a loose strand of the all-too-worn-out sweater that was almost two sizes too big for her, around her finger.
Her breath hitched in her throat when the door opened slowly. One pale hand was in his dark blue trousers and the other was holding a crumpled letter that faintly read, Hermione Granger. She licked her lips and tried to clear her voice, only to have guttural groans escape her lips. The dark blue contrasted against his pale, almost porcelain skin. She noted that he wasn't wearing a jacket and his white, button downed shirt had the sleeves rolled up right to his elbows.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
His eyes were different. They reminded her of the weather today. It had been grey and windy and calm before the night would turn into a watery, scary thunderstorm. His eyes reminded her of the calm before the storm.
She looked away. Averting her eyes to something different – to the walls – to the hangnail that was on her right thumb – to a loose string on the worn out sweater – to the mark that laid teasingly against his forearm.
It was almost hypnotizing it was. It almost made her question why he had got it in the first place. She wondered – why the scar hadn't faded, why it hadn't disappeared as easily as the amount of Death Eaters that went into hiding – that had went into Azkaban. But instead she got infuriated, the sensation tingled against her palms as it crawled all the way up – up – up and right to the back of her neck and she shivered.
She shivered and he noticed.
She shivered and he had the audacity to smirk. But before she could say anything, before she could start talking and tell him he wasn't welcome here, his voice echoed in the room—
"I don't really have much time for you incessant silence, Granger. I'm rather busy, you see, since it's almost time to go back to Hogwarts."
With a quick motion – with a quick, angry scream, the mug that was on her bedside table flew right to his head. He was too quick, too aware and with a flick of his wand he had shielded himself – deflected the oncoming potion and we both watched as it shattered against the ground. The blue, almost periwinkle – like the dress she wore to the Yule Ball – pooled at the ground. The green shards from the mug splattered everywhere.
She grimaced at him.
"Now, now, now," Malfoy tsked and took a step forwards, his long legs avoiding the shards of glass. He smirked at her now and his eyes – his calm eyes changed. Hermione couldn't help but wonder what it was that changed, but she would already know the answer. He was annoyed with her.
He continued, "Why is it that when I've come with a letter for you, I get a potion thrown at my head? Your seemingly stupid muggle ways of letting out anger is clearly barbaric."
She shut her eyes tightly and started counting to ten. One—
"Maybe it's because you're surprised to see that it was me—"
Two—
"—but the people working here had told me you were expecting me. So, you must have known—"
Three—
"—were you expecting someone different?"
Four—
"—perhaps you were expecting Saint Potter and his side-kick, Weasel King?"
Hermione's body was hot – an ear splitting pounding had found its way and had taken hostage of her brain. She should of known better – he was Draco – he wanted to see a rise out of Hermione. But what he didn't expect was that she had got off her itchy, lumpy, St Mungo's bed and hopped straight into the shards of glass, wincing at the say time she yelled – faltering in her step with a pain-stricken face – FLIPPENDO!
Draco Malfoy knocked back into the door, his head hitting the wooden frame as he slid to the ground. He watched Hermione as she took a few more steps into the glass, blood trickling from her feet as she started talking – wincing and letting out little whimpers as she struggled.
"How dare you, Draco Malfoy!" She yelled, falling in front of him.
Her hair was unkempt and the sweater she was wearing smelled of grass in the spring time and campfires in the night. It was too big – too big for her – and it made her feel at home. She glowered at him, her once warm body that was radiating the room was now cold – it was now numb and it was his entire fault.
"—You don't understand, do you?" She managed to not make any sense and it completely bewildered Draco Malfoy as he struggled to get up from the ground. There were people knocking at the door and alarmed voices echoed faintly through to her room. "You don't understand what we went through. What Harry, or myself – even Ron – what we went through. Now you're here and I don't want you to be. Because I don't think you'll ever learn. Because I don't think you'll ever understand. You'll never understand how things were for us"
The door was open now and Draco was just a few inches away from the open door, breathing heavily. It was frantic, really, his breathing. His chest heaved up and down, struggling for air. Trying to grasp what had just happened. What Hermione had just said to him. He wouldn't get it. He'll never understand it. What did that mean?
His hair was now disheveled and there was potion stains on his shirt and all he did was look at her. His eyes, they were swimming with something she didn't understand. Something she did not want to understand.
"Listen, Granger." He said hoarsely, choppy, "Things – aren't – always – what – they – seem."
What did that mean?