A/N: Hey, wassup guys? New story for you:D And it's Dramione this time. Depressing at the beginning, happy at the end. However, I'm unsatisfied with the cover I made. It's too pink. Pink means fluff, and this is not fluff. Maybe minor fluff. What is the definition of fluff, anyway?
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Nor that John Green quote that Draco says, try and find it! But I wish, dude, I wish. I'm asking for the rights for Christmas. I've been good this year, Santa!
Okay, read on.
"She smelled of cigarettes and sadness."
-Unknown
If there was something Draco Malfoy appreciated about Muggles, it was the drugs.
The magic of vodka and some cigarettes, well, they'd worked better than any curse he could ever think of.
Well, vodka was okay. But cigarettes. They were something else.
It was kind of pathetic, really. The way Draco Malfoy depended on cigarettes to give him some light. The only time he could ever breathe was when he breathed in smoke.
The thing is, he needed them. He needed them like how Harry Potter needed his friends. Well, Draco Malfoy didn't have any friends. And cigarettes proved that he didn't need them.
They calmed him down. Even in the worst of situations, at least he could go outside and have a smoke. It reflected in his eyes, and probably, somewhere down deep inside him, he had a little black set of lungs, wheezing and screaming. He didn't care. He hoped they died in there. Maybe they'd kill him too.
Draco wasn't afraid of dying, for he knew how it was to drown.
He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, slowly breathing out a cloud of gray. He closed his eyes, letting the smoke drift out over the Astronomy Tower and float out into the sky to join the stars.
He sat on the railing, swinging his legs. Stardust and moonlight coated the shiny black metal of the rungs, and he could barely see the ground. It was a long drop.
No one ever bothered him up here. Not many people came up, unless it was for class. Technically, the entire area was prohibited.
He propped his elbow up on his knee, and thought.
He had come back to finish his eighth year after the war, along with a bunch of would-be seventh year students that weren't lucky enough to do so. As he expected, no one really liked or trusted him. He had fallen, fallen along with Voldemort, even if he fought for the Light side.
The air tasted cool. His eyes stung. He hadn't slept well in weeks. He could never escape the nightmares.
He took another tiny sip of smoke, like he was drinking moonlight.
"Malfoy?"
He was almost caught off guard. He reached out a hand to steady himself, and turned around.
"Granger."
She stared at him, her hair as wild as usual.
"A-are you smoking?" she asked, her voice incredibly high.
"Maybe." he responded, turning back around and taking a long swig of smoke. It tasted like London rainwater and gray dreams.
"That's—that's bad for you, you know."
Annoyance flared up inside his chest like fireworks. Maybe the flames from his cigarettes had caught fire in his lungs.
"I know."
Granger didn't say anything, just teetered back and forth on her feet uncertainly.
"Why are you here, Granger?" he asked tiredly.
She came closer, and he fought the urge to push her away. "Can't sleep," she whispered, and he recognized her tone of voice. It was fear; the same fear that haunted him every time he closed his eyes.
He smiled. "Nightmares too, huh?"
"Yes," she breathed.
He looked over at her, and he found she was staring at his cigarette. "Want one?" he asked, pulling another out of his pack and holding it out to her.
She hesitated, then firmly shook her head. "No, thanks."
"It won't kill you, Granger." he said scornfully, tucking it back into his pocket. "If the war didn't, what do you expect from a tube of tar?"
"Sometimes the littlest things are the most dangerous." she said boldly.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Fine." he tossed his cigarette over the edge of the tower, and Granger sucked in her breath.
He pulled another out of the pack and lit it with the tip of his wand. He found he was growing annoyed with her wide-eyed stare.
"Aren't you going to bed, Granger?" he asked in irritation. "I like being alone up here, thanks."
Her cheeks reddened. "This tower doesn't have your name on it, Malfoy."
"Yeah?" he asked, scratching "Draco" into the moonlit stone with the tip of his wand. "Now it does."
"Well, that's not fair." Hermione responded, scribbling her own name beneath his in perfect cursive. He scowled at it.
They were silent once more. "Aren't you afraid of falling?" she whispered, looking fearfully down at the long drop.
He smirked at the drop. "Fear is for the weak."
"That's not a very Slytherin thing to say."
His smirk disappeared. "It wasn't a Slytherin thing to switch sides during the war. Maybe we aren't defined by our House qualities, huh?" He took a sip of smoke and blew it out into Granger's face, who coughed and sputtered.
Another silence.
"What do you have nightmares about?" she asked, whispering again.
"Granger, why are you whispering? We're the only ones here."
"Fine," she said loudly. "WHAT DO YOU HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT?"
Draco looked out to the Forbidden Forest, stretching for miles after Hogwarts, bristling with secrets. He thought about Granger screaming on the floor of his house, he thought about watching his aunt cut the word, 'Mudblood' into her skin.
"Give me your arm." he said instead. "Left arm."
Hesitantly, she stuck out her left arm. He pushed back her sleeve and looked at her forearm. It was still there. It was still an ugly word. She stared at the ground.
Slowly, he ran his thumb over the scar, and his fingers tingled. He felt goose bumps on her unmarred skin. She snatched her arm away from him.
"I have nightmares about him. My parents. My aunt. The Death Eaters. You are your friends. Dumbledore. The school. Everything. I have nightmares about everything, and they never stop." Draco answered finally, staring at the horizon.
She was silent for a long time. Draco realized that Granger was a listener, like him. She spoke, but only to offer more to the conversation. She didn't speak mindlessly just to weave through time with her voice and waste her words, but allowed others to speak. Then she'd take their thoughts into careful consideration, and think about it. It was unnerving.
He took a sip of starlight. Which is to say, from his cigarette.
"I have nightmares about the war too."
He glanced at her, and she looked like a goddess. Her eyes were ablaze and her fists were clenched and his cigarette smoke danced around her form like mist. He found he couldn't take his eyes off of her.
"I have nightmares about everything that happened. And I-I—" She took a shuddering breath. "I remember everyone. Tonks, and Fred, and Dobby and—" Breath of oxygen colored with cigarette smoke. "—and I just remember. I relieve their deaths over and over again, and I don't want to, but it just happens, and I remember Bellatrix, that awful woman and I have nightmares about her too. I have nightmares about being tortured, again and again and again—"
"Granger, have a cigarette." Draco interrupted urgently. He was panicking over the sight of her panicking. "Calm down. Here." He hurriedly handed her a slim tube that concealed Muggle magic.
She glared at him and the cigarette and then the sky, and with a burst of a scream, she flung the cigarette over the tower and they watched it fall to the ground.
Draco blinked.
She sat next to him.
"Waste of a good fag." he said to her seriously, crossing his legs and leaning backwards.
She said nothing.
"Some people smoke to live, Granger, but I smoke to die." he told her. "Smoke is so poetic, when you think about it. People write about it all the time. Cigarettes are elegant and classy these days."
"Still stupid." Granger said, her voice soft again.
He shrugged. "Stupid, maybe, but a good distraction from the stupidity of life."
"It's a terrible distraction."
He looked at her in amusement. "What do you suggest, then? Golf?"
She didn't answer for a long time, just swung her legs in time to his.
"I've always wanted to know what a cigarette tastes like." she said suddenly, quietly.
"Then take one, woman!" he said, smirking. "I've been offering them to you all night."
"Smoking is for the weak." she told him, mimicking his earlier statement. "But fear is for the brave. We're all afraid of something."
"Not me." Draco replied. "Not anymore." He stood up. "Well, I'd best be heading to bed, Granger. Class tomorrow and all that." He dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the toe of his shoe.
She didn't respond, and Draco wasn't sure why he had waited for some sort of response. He hadn't expected her to gush "Goodnight!" and throw her arms around him.
He had started to retreat into the dark hall, when he heard her voice.
"There are good distractions. Like reading and drawing. And talking to others. And watching the sun rise. And going to the park. And dancing in the rain. And counting the stars."
He looked at her in amazement. Her eyes were blazing again, and a midnight breeze blew her curls from her face, and she was bathed in starlight and he couldn't help himself. He knew she was dating Ron Weasley but he didn't care, all that mattered was that she was here with him on the tower, and she was fire and light and all the good things that distracted him from the stupidity of life.
So he pulled her close to him and kissed her.
She was the real thing. She coursed her fingers through his hair and kissed him back.
When he slowly pulled away, he was breathing hard. He wondered if his lungs were going to give out now.
"Now you know what a cigarette tastes like," he whispered, tracing his fingers down her jaw. She closed her eyes and grasped his hand.
He pulled away, thinking she had the loveliest eyes he had ever seen. Thinking she was prettier and more poetic than cigarette smoke.
"Goodnight, Granger."
With that, he pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and tossed them over the railing of the tower. He didn't need them anymore.
And he left.
Draco stood at the window of his dormitory, looking out at the stars and remembering the taste of Hermione Granger's lips.
He thought about their names etched into the cold stone of the Astronomy Tower, and he smiled.
There were going to be no more nightmares, he was sure of that.
And there weren't.
A/N: Aaaand, FINISH.
Review!
(I told you it wasn't depressing.)
P.S. I'm having an obsession with writing stories with male characters that smoke. I don't know why. I hate it when people smoke.
Well, maybe I don't. A little.
Apparently male characters who smoke are tall, dark and handsome. Brooding. You know. That bad boy sort of thing. Like, Draco Malfoy kind of bad boy. Like, silver eyes, perfect hair, and smoke curling around his perfectly lean figure. Yeah. That's not unattractive to me.
Don't smoke. It's bad for you. Smoking is bad.
...Review?:D