Her brown eyes met his grey ones. Was there some flicker of recognition? Some emotion which defied his usually controlled self to reach his eyes? She couldn't be sure. The connection was broken as soon as it was made, his attention back to a pretty blonde by his side.
She wished she hadn't agreed to come to the reunion.
She really did.
But hadn't been there that hint of hope of just seeing him again?
She reprimanded herself that he was the very cause of her unwillingness. Standing there at the corner of the dance floor, she could feel that familiar feeling of longing and hurt bubbling up her throat, making her dizzy. Suddenly the confidence she had of being completely over him deserted her and she wasn't just sure anymore. For the first time in her life, Hermione Granger turned to flee.

Her exit unfortunately, was interrupted by a familiar touch on her arms.
A shudder passed through her and how hard she wished it wasn't so, as she turned, she was left staring into those grey pools. How she had undermined the power of those eyes!

She was dancing with him. How the hell did she manage to be in the very arms of the person she had been trying to avoid the whole time, God only knew!
He asked her something to which she uttered something unintelligible. Oh...so he had been asking for a dance!
What an irony!
It all had started with a dance...in another time, but in the very same place.

She couldn't help it. She was falling, she knew it. That path in her memory she had ceased to travel...beckoning her, urging her again. She didn't want to get lost...get entangled in those webs of conflicting emotions.
No no...she wouldn't go that way.
She could feel him staring at her.
One by one all her barriers she had erected in all these years seemed to crash around her. She wondered how could he be so calm...so unmoved while his presence was driving her mad...suffocating her.
She knew he could see right through her, he could always do.
She wished for once she could know what was on his mind...
Did he still...No, she wouldn't go there again. She did not love him anymore!
With renewed confidence she returned his stare.
What was it in his eyes? Was it regret? Sadness?
That emotion gone as soon as it had come...replaced by the coldness again.
She should have known, she thought...his emotions were meant to be hidden...even from himself.

But wasn't he the one who had led her into his world that fateful day? His private world which wasn't supposed to exist. How she still sometimes wished that it didn't. Only sometimes. The rest of the times, she would just close her eyes and remember.

Somehow he had managed to twirl them outside the giant doors of the Great Hall…

He took her hands, leading her towards the grounds.

She wanted to run away.
Instead she could feel him pulling her closer and the next instant his lips were on hers…warming her insides. She could feel all the pain, the heartaches accumulated over years flooding past her barrier. At the mercy of those feelings...letting them take over, prod open those wounds afresh.

Hell! She loved him.
She looked into his eyes and found herself staring to those pools of grey she had once given herself to so many years ago.
There was pain, heartache, regret...echoing hers...and gosh! He loved her.
She knew it, even without him murmuring it against her lips.
She could feel it...surrounding her, messing up her senses...
He was melting. His stony cold reserve was evaporating.
She melted with him.

There were emotions...bittersweet...once again flowing freely...engulfing them.
Sheer happiness...blinding them...healing those wounds...perhaps they would never heal completely, but for now, it was enough.
And there was love...in those two broken hearts...mending the pieces…giving them a precious second chance if only they would just take it.