The Winding Road
a k a n t h a e - h i m e
Authoress' Note & Disclaimer: Supposed to be a smidge of DMHG for Meii while she waits for The Pawn's Parade...meanwhile, all standard disclaimers apply and this is set in a possibly AU setting where Draco and Hermione have to live together after a long, furious, absolutely catastrophical war full of violence, death, and even more gory violence. Go violence. Completely random title, by the way.
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The routine is the same every day. Draco is always the first to wake, often having slept for little to no time at all the night before, to salvage what they can garner. Hermione wakes several hours afterwards; she doesn't suffer from the same symptoms of insomnia but in her the illness - generally called heartbreak - is far more evident.
Draco can pretend everything is alright, however much there is to say otherwise. He still doesn't smile. It's not in his stitchwork.
Hermione can smile. She doesn't want to. And frankly, it wouldn't do much if she did. Draco sometimes thinks that if she would - bright, cheery, and oh-so-false, probably coupled with a little of mindless chitchat about the weather - he'd go mad. He'd go utterly, completely ballistic. Days like these, it doesn't pay to gnaw through the leather straps, let alone smile on the pretense of joy.
So Hermione doesn't smile. And Draco doesn't go mad. The monotony is something needed, something that is the only mortar between two jagged stones named Malfoy and Granger.
It's not either of their faults that the regularity doesn't last. It just isn't.
They both blame it on something out of their reach.
