Summary: based on a challenge on a site I visit. Here are the requirements for the challenge:
1. This is a songfic challenge. The song can be located in the ballad section of this board.. It is entitled 'You don't know.'
2. It should be a Draco/Hermione pair-up. Other pair-ups will be disqualified.
3. It should be a one-shot story.
4. It should consist of a minimum of 1000 words and a maximum of 2500 words. If you plan on putting the lyrics of the song, it will be excluded in the counting of words.
5. The ratings should be G-PG only..
6. You need to give your own one-word title.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything...
Who could know the emptiness inside
Every time I see your face
Too many feelings left behind
It was after the big fight. The fight against Voldemort in which I found myself rather fighting along her side than dying next to my parents. It's not just that I wanted to live. I wanted to live with her. I wanted her to look at me, and not see the prat I once was. I wanted so much from her, and yet so little. I just wanted her to tolerate me. She didn't have to like me, love me, or hang out with me. All I was asking for was for her to be able to stand me. For her not to walk out of the room when I was entering. For her to be able to look at me without feeling those emotions she used to feel. Repulsion. Disgust. Hatred.
I wanted to stop feeling things myself. I couldn't bare to look at her anymore, because I knew it would give me butterflies in my stomach. How stupid is that? To like your enemy? It had started long before the war. Long before I defied the Malfoy name and chose light over darkness. Before Voldemort killed people she loved, even before he got corporeal. I was torn between wanting to protect her and the loyalty I held for my family. So I just did nothing. I stood back and watched, which didn't make my father proud, but didn't anger him either.
Do you wonder why
I turn away when you look at me
Never wanting your eyes to see
This desperate heart that knows
How perfect we could be
I seemed to be good at doing nothing for a long time. I watched. Stood on the sideline, taking in the beauty that was her and fought back the need to protect her. I was there when Ginny died. I was there when she held Rons hand, the only part of him that hadn't been torn up. I was there when she cried over his death. And all that time I just watched. I never talked to her, or tried to comfort her. I just stood there, and inside of me feelings started to boil up. How could this fight be fair if it hurt the people I cared about? How was something like this justified if it killed so many innocent people? Was blood –spilled blood – really worth all this pain?
I finally decided it wasn't. It couldn't be. It wasn't fair. She hadn't deserved this. Nobody had.
Baby cause you don't know, how I feel
Livin' my life without you
Baby 'cause you don't know what it's like
Lovin you all this time
Nobody believed me when I wanted to help them. Harry was sceptic. Of course he was. He had seen his best friend dying in battle, a battle that had started by someone he despised. Someone who had for sixteen years been my hero. Someone I admired. Someone my parents obeyed. I knew things that nobody else did. Maybe that was the reason that in the end they accepted me. Or tolerated me. I can still remember how it was her that argued with Harry the most. It wasn't for me though. It was to take revenge on the one that had killed one of the golden trio. One who dared to hurt one of her friends.
I don't think I've ever loved her more than I did at that moment. The moment she decided that to fight evil, sometimes you had to work with evil. She couldn't get herself to look at me though. For weeks she avoided my gaze, barely spoke to me, except when she needed information. And I gave her all that she wanted. I told her all she needed to know, even if it was tearing my heart into pieces. Because part of me still was loyal to my parents. Betraying them made me feel pain I had never experienced before. But it was worth it. It had to stop.
I'll give you all my love, heart and soul
Riskin' it all on a chance
And now when I need you most
You don't know
My heart went out to her. When she broke down crying, sobbing that she couldn't take it anymore and that we would never win, I wanted to go to her and take her in my arms. I wanted to tell her that yes we would. We had her. She was smart, beautiful, the best witch I had seen in my whole life. And I wasn't just saying that because I loved her.
I never told her though. I kept myself at a distance, glancing at her from the sidelines, watching Harry comfort her. Watching how he cradled her in his arms and whispered sweet words in her ear that my mouth so desperately wanted to say. Feeling her fragile body in his arms, the way I can feel it when I just try to pretend it hard enough.
All I ever wanted in this world
Baby I found in you
I never felt this way before
But I can't break through
She's pure. Even when she is a mudblood, as dirty as blood could make anyone, in so many things she is purer then I am. She hasn't betrayed her loyalty. She hasn't killed people she once promised to stay faithful to. She didn't hurt people just for fun. I did all those things. I am a pureblood but she is the one that is truly pure at heart.
I admire her. And I envy her too. I know that after the battle she could look back without worrying. She knew that she won, and that they deserved to win. What did I know? I knew that I fought against everything I used to believe in. I fought against people I once knew, and looking back I see myself as nothing but a traitor. It is not her who is not worthy of me, it me who doesn't deserve her. She deserves the most perfect person in the world. Someone who can be proud of what he is, what he did.
And now I lie awake, alone at night
So afraid now to close my eyes
Just one more dream of you
I'll carry here inside
In my dreams she tells me that I too am worthy. That I'm purer now than I ever was. Because I chose light. Despite my dark past, my inheritance, I chose light. She thinks I did it because it was the right cause, when in my heart I know that the reason was her. I didn't do it to prevent mudbloods from dying. I did it because I didn't want her to go. Because I knew that I couldn't live my life knowing that I would never see that beautiful smile again.
But now it's over. We won. My parents are dead, Voldemort is defeated, and everybody is happy. Everybody has someone to celebrate with. Except me. I am alone, sitting at what was once Malfoy Manor, and now nothing but a ruin. There is nothing left to live for. Except maybe the knowledge that as long as I walk this earth there is still a chance that I'll see that smile again. Maybe when she passes me on the streets, her head filled with beautiful dreams about the future. She wouldn't notice me. She would just smile, walking in a different world than I am in.
And I would hold you through the night
I will stay right by your side
And I'd give you my world if your love was mine
But her love is something I will never have. Never allow myself to have. I won't stop her when she passes me by. I won't tell her about those feelings I keep hidden inside.
I will just let her go.
Because that is the biggest and best thing I can give her.
Review please!