Hermione's POV

I refused to let the tears fall. He has never seen me cry, and I'll be damned if I let him today. While piling the last few items of clothing and books into my trunk, I willed the tears away, my eyes burning from the effort. I had reached my breaking point. I'd had enough.

Over the past few months, I have been held in this sort of purgatory by fear. I prided myself in my younger years as being strong enough to stand on my own. I survived the war for Merlin's sake! But ever since he became something more to me, something worth holding on to, I knew that I couldn't survive without him. Knowing this made this decision that more difficult. He had to know that I loved him more than my life, but I couldn't handle this situation any longer.

My body trembled uncontrollably with fear as I did a quick mental inventory to check if I had everything. Lifting my eyes quickly, I looked at his lean figure silhouetted in the open window, his back to me. With his hands in the pockets of his perfectly tailored trousers, he looked the picture of ease. Had I not known him so well, I would have missed his slight fidgeting and shallow intake of breath, attempting to calm himself down. Our fight had been of epic proportions, and the amount of energy and passion we both put into it, literally ripped us apart.

Tears gathered in my eyes, threatening to spill over my lids. I held them there unwilling to set them free, unwilling to show him that he had gotten the best of me. No, Draco Malfoy would never know exactly how he made me feel. I couldn't, no I wouldn't, show him, not now, probably never. If he knew my true feelings, then he'd know that he was my weakness; that he alone could make or break me. And now, he was breaking me into a million tiny fragments.

I banged closed the lid of my trunk with a loud thud and locked it with purpose. Wincing and quickly swiveling around, Draco's eyes fell on the trunk, which contained all of my possessions, as I muttered a quick shrinking spell and stuffed it into my beaded bag. His eyes narrowed. I saw a glimmer in his eyes revealing the many questions that were no doubt swirling around in his mind. But just as quickly it was gone, replaced by his usual mask of indifference. No doubt his questions were about my ability to actually walk out, then why I was leaving. He was well aware of the reasons why.

My legs felt as if they were incased in stone as I began my journey through his flat to the front door. The five second walk seemed to take hours. As I came closer to the front door, the door that I would make sure to shut behind me, the louder my footsteps became. They echoed in my brain asking me if this was the right decision. Was leaving really my goal? Did I have to go?

The answer to those questions still existed in the bedroom with his hands in his pockets. All I needed was for him to prove to me that I was his, only his. I wanted him to make me feel needed, to make me feel like I was a part of his life and not some mere acquaintance. How hard was that for him to understand? How hard was it to understand that I wanted a life with him, one that we could call ours?

My internal questions were met with silence though, and as I turned back toward the door, I felt a slight resistance inside of me stretch like a rubber band. Instead of bouncing back, sooner or later that rubber band would snap; I was sure of it. So, I continued moving forward, my leaden feet reluctantly dragging my body toward the door.

With my vision blurring yet again, I grabbed a hold of the elegant door knob. Holding back the tears became my first priority as I felt the walls of my heart cave in and collapse on themselves. Could it be that I was really making a mistake? Mistakes didn't happen in my book. Everything happened for a reason.

I turned around once more with burning eyes to find the emptiness of his living room. The blue walls, built-in bookshelves and moving pictures on top of the fireplace brought back happy memories of when he first bought this place, and our two-and-a-half week excursion of painting these walls – the Muggle way mind you – Sky Blue, and installing building and installing the bookshelves to house our joint collections, and pictures snapped during that week and at various events.

A single tear fell from my eye onto my cheek. Almost without thinking, I quickly wiped it away with the back of my hand as another one filled my eyes to the brim. I couldn't see anything through the thick tears clinging to my eyelashes.

I would miss him – more than anything. He knew that.

Breathing deeply helped calm down some of the pain burning in my chest. So, I stood with my hand tightly wrapped around the door knob waiting for a sign that I should really be doing this. I'm not a Seer, but I was desperately hoping for something. But, nothing came. Nothing. Not even the man who was supposed to love me, who was supposed to be the other half of me; he didn't even bother to come out and stop me. Did he want me to go?

The burning in my chest became hotter as I slowly twisted the knob giving him a chance to come after me, to finally show me that I was a part of his life. But again, no one came to stop me from my mindless oblivion. No one bothered to show me the slightly fidgeting figure in the next room. No one stressed to me the meaning of walking out on someone else. All I could feel was the pain breathing in my chest and the emptiness echoing in my heart as I walked out his front door, down the hallway, and into the lift.

As I stepped into the lift and pressed the ground floor button, I turned with a hopeful heart to the gaping doors that gave a perfect view to flat 12D all the way at the end of the hall. The dam finally broke, and tears streamed down my cheeks flooding my body with sobs when the door closed without one sign of him running to stop me.

I wish he would have stopped me like I should have stopped the tears falling from my eyes.

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