It's December and the frost hugs every corner of the Hogwarts grounds. Hermione shivers slightly. She should have worn a thicker coat for weather like this, but she left her good one in Draco's dorm the last time they met there. The Slytherin-her Slytherin-is late, for what must be the hundredth time. The silver haired young man is wonderful most times, but punctuality he never seems to manage. She can look past it though. Usually.
"Hey," comes the warm, low voice.
She whips around around and almost smacks her head straight into Draco's chest.
"Woah there, I'm fragile, y'know?" Draco chuckles even as he grabs her waist to steady her.
A toss of her bushy hair, a harrumph of unhappiness, and Hermione thinks, she's rather got that 70% of non verbal communication down pat.
"Sorry I'm late. Crabbe tried to hit on me on my way out of the dungeons. Good looks, and all that, I'm sure you understand?" There's a smirk and the smug tone that Hermione really doesn't want to validate with a response, but she gives up and chuckles.
"You're so full of yourself," She mocks while playfully punching his shoulder. "I heard Blaise Zabini won more votes in that category. Romilda was swooning in the bathroom the other day."
At this point Hermione switches over to the highest pitch her voice box is capable of and squeals in imitation, "Blaise has the most amazing thigh muscles, but don't ask me how I know that," ending off her performance with a round of sickly sweet giggling.
Draco snorted. "I'm going to repeat that one to Blaise when I get back." They look each other in the eye, come to the same conclusion, and burst into laughter. The poor dark haired, mysterious bachelor of the snakes.
The laughter fades, and Hermione is left with hiccups. The silence seems oddly discomfiting, which is weird. She's never felt awkward around Draco, but this morning it feels weighed down with anticipation, and Hermione can't tell if it's good, or bad.
"Take care of yourself, okay?" The statement is jarring in the frigid air. Sure, they're parting for the Christmas holidays, but it's not even the longest they've been apart, and Hermione frowns slightly.
"Of course. Are you alright, Draco?" Hermione reaches out to sweep his platinum bangs back. Draco gave up on the hair gel when he found out in April that she thought the mussed up, casual look "rather ravishing", but the soft hair does tend to fall into his eyes.
Her hand is barely an inch away from Draco's face when he suddenly jerks back, and then remains arrested in a slightly off balance posture of avoidance, as though mind and body couldn't quite coordinate.
It hurts, Hermione admits. He's never rejected her touch before.
"Look, Hermione," and her name sounds foreign rolling off his tongue-since when has he called her anything but "Granger"?
Pale lids and silver lashes fall like curtains over quicksilver eyes. It's not yet the close, Hermione realises with irrational certainty. It's not yet the close, and the show isn't going to be pleasant, not if the hitch in Draco's breathing is anything to go by.
"I...let's break up."
And Hermione feels like her lungs have just fallen flat on oxygen and there isn't enough space in a set of caged bones for the pain in her heart.
"You've always been a special person to me...just not in that way," Draco says. The next line comes in a whisper, but it rings through the silence of the open glade.
"I've never loved you, not romantically."
The cruelty of expectations and reality and the mismatch of former with latter. It's not April Fool's, she doesn't think, and Wizards don't celebrate the day. She's waiting for Draco to laugh everything off as a joke, so that she can give him a tight slap on the shoulder for scaring her, but the moment doesn't come. The grey eyes are cool and shielding her from any insight.
She wants to ask, "Really?", she wants to ask for a confirmation and be told no, but she doesn't verbalise all that, of course. There's a fine line between what needs to be said and what she might want to say, and a large part of her doesn't think she can walk away from this with a second confirmation of an ugly truth.
So she asks the next possible question, which is not a satisfactory replacement for a response in any case, but nonetheless, Hermione isn't one to accept incredulous statements without a clear rationale.
"Why then? Why lead me on? Because everything from the past months-year, in fact-clearly point towards a romantic interest," She doesn't highlight the time when Draco spoke of love. They both know it well enough.
"I...you seemed to be so infatuated with me, it felt cruel to push you away," comes the slightly pleading response. It's a terrible excuse, and an unacceptable reason. Hermione wants to make an amendment-it was not a simple infatuation. But the words stick in her throat.
"You're okay, right?"
That's when she knows, what he wants to hear. Her pride agrees. She doesn't want to be that girl, pining after someone like a lost dog, but when she opens her mouth and says, "Yeah. Yes I am," her gut wretches and she is sure the ache beneath her ribs may never go away. It feels like a part of her, already.
Draco looks at her with sad, sad grey eyes that speak of too much pity for her to bear. There is a time and place for reconciliation, but it is too soon for that, and he is too close.
"Ca...can you let me be alone for a bit?"
Draco opens his mouth, about to say something, but Hermione doesn't want sympathy.
She quickly snaps out, "I'm fine. Really. Go back to the castle, we've to leave for the train soon."
The blonde hesitates, seems to think better of speaking, and simply nods.
"Stay safe." And with a warm touch to her wrist, he turns around and leaves. Hermione finds herself taking two steps after him, before planting herself firmly on the ground. Her whole being screams for her to follow him, and she vaguely weighs the pros and cons of doing so, but he's gone too far now.
She slumps down into the snow, unaware of the freezing cold.
-Curtain Call-
"Draco..." the man hisses with distinct pleasure. "You have made your family proud. Power is in your hands. You will be greatly rewarded for your loyalty."
"Yes, My Lord," Draco murmurs, lips brushing the stone he kneels upon.
"Dumbledore is a fool...what does Love have against power? Nothing, my boy, nothing at all." Slit like nostrils widen with a great intake of breath. "And now, you have chosen greatness."
Yew lands upon pale alabaster skin, and it is pain beyond imagination, knives through bone, fire searing skin, but Draco holds on to a fragment of thought. Love is…
And when he looks down at the mark of serpent and skull, with tears swimming in his eyes, he sees instead a brown haired girl with the heart of a Gryffindor. Love, he thinks. That's what this is.