March 30, 2008 1:27 AM – March 31, 2008 8:57 PM

A/N: It feels good to be finally writing again. I have another one I'll be posting soon. It came to existence because of an English project-- Book of Idioms. Anyway, enough of that. Hermione might be OOC here. Please tell me what you think-- creative criticisms are always welcome. You'll get a caramelized apple if you do. :)

"You're not telling him." Ginny said slowly, her voice chasing the distance between our work cubicles. Or was she asking?

All I know was that I almost winced at the hint of disapproval I heard. I opened my mouth and the negation tumbled off without missing a beat, without as so much I looking her in the eye. I was trying to impress upon her a careless disregarding attitude. Thank God, that went off nicely.

Hermione Granger, once again, was hiding behind papers.

Really, I was just acting like Mark from Rent. Only he hid behind his camera, which meant he had more class.

Oh, brother.

When I continually only heard the shuffling of the papers, which, by the way, my hands were the cause, I allowed my lips to part, a silent sigh of relief ready to be released, mingle, and be part of the .03 percent carbon dioxide in the air.

When my lungs finally expanded, I knew I had made a mistake.

Ginny slammed her pen on the table. "You're not telling him?" Oh, there was a significant development in manner from her last statement. Not only was I sure she was asking, but, dare I say, I heard disgust?

Another, oh-for she was staring at me, burning holes on my head which belonged to the side where my right ear was docked. I was itching to put up a Protego.

I pursed my lips. Hmm, since I was dealing with a Weasley, I suppose I would need a Protego horribilis instead.

"Hermione!" Her sharp tone cut through my wanderings.

I blinked. "Hu-wha-huh?" I blinked again.

"You're not telling him," she repeated, not believing she was actually saying the words in confirmation as to what I was not going to do.

"Malfoy?" she prompted impatiently.

Ah, we were talking about him.

I shrugged noncommittally, as my hands started pursuing the handles of my drawers. I was able to maintain mundane office motions, as opposed to downright freezing and reacquainting myself on how to breathe. So far, so good. Normalcy is my game plan.

"What about him?" I read in a book once that not acknowledging the person's name made things a lot more impersonal. I yawned once for effect.

It was, I learned, my second mistake that almost cost me my sense of hearing. Ginny just suddenly burst. "What do you mean 'What about him?'"

"Wha—"

"Oh stop it, Hermione! You have never managed to remained aloof—" My head snapped towards her direction, and she wasn't finished yet! "— especially when it concerns Malfoy!" Oh, boy, my eyes widened; I was indignant!

I opened my mouth. My brain was done processing the endless tirade I would soon start which would defend my persona, but again she beat me to it. "Don't be shock, please. It's unbecoming of you, Hermione. You've always told me how you value the truth. Here I am telling you the truth and nothing but the truth, and how do you act? Disbelieving." She sighed, closing her eyes. "Didn't you tell me once that when it concerns our own selves we deny everything, because we don't want to believe, don't want to accept the truth?"

I couldn't, at that moment, suddenly breathe. It was as if someone had cut my supply of oxygen. Someone cruel who wanted me to drown in the horrible theories Ginny was concluding.

"No," I croaked weakly. "No."

Ginny's face softened. Her eyes no longer conveying fierceness. "I know you're scared." She touched my hand. "And it's all right to be scared, but what you're doing is wrong. Things haven't even started yet, not really, and you're instantly bolting towards the other end." She squeezed my fingers. "This isn't the Hermione I know. This isn't what a Gryffindor would do."

I pushed her hand away, and I detected not an ounce of hurt in her face, but understanding, patience, gentleness. Why? "How do you know what I should or should not do?" I asked her harshly, my voice low and threatening.

She answered back, the epitome of calmness and reason. "How do you know he's not coming back?"

Before I could answer, she asked again. "How do you know he doesn't love you? How would you know when you didn't even give him a chance!"

She looked at me sadly, almost pitying me, and I almost cried then. This was not fair. Who was she to question me? Who was she to tell me what to do?

"A friend," she responded, as if she heard my thoughts. "I'm a friend who knows you deserve a happy ending, and friend who would do anything-- and everything-- to get you that happy ending. But I can't do that if you're deliberately steering away from that path, deliberately pretending it doesn't exist, by deliberately being a cynic, by deliberately pushing away the man you love."

I tasted something unpleasant and vile, and I wanted to get rid of it immediately. But how? How was I to do that? Finally, I whispered, brokenly, "What do you want me to do? What do you want me to say?"

"If you could just admit it to yourself…" With that, she stood up. I didn't even realized what her intention was amidst the rolling of the wheels, a button clicking, a bag being slung on a shoulder. When it hit me that she was leaving me, I became desperate.

I called out to her. Desperation transformed into anger for the thought that she was betraying me, she was leaving me behind, to humiliation when realization and enlightenment suddenly struck that I was wrong, and finally back to desperation when she wasn't slowing down. She was leaving me.

"What do you want me to say, Ginny?" I screamed violently. "That I love him? That I'm afraid? That this baby I'm carrying will grow up without a father because his mother was too afraid to give him a chance?"

She didn't even look back, and I was left there breaking down, too busy to hear the sound of a faint click and a wisp of a smile.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three loud quick raps against my wooden door.

This was three hours after I last saw Ginny. Three hours where I spent crying.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I raised my head and tried—and failed—to glare at the door. "Go away," I rasped, as loud as my throat allowed me to.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I closed my eyes and hugged the body pillow. "I said, 'Go away!'"

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I finally snapped. "Fuck you! Go away!"

And I heard silence. My labored breathing the only sound that existed in my world. I released a tired breath, then reclined back to my sofa. Unfortunately, however, my back never made contact with the softness of my couch, because, upon hearing the revival of knocks on my door, I threw the pillow on the floor, stood up, and marched towards the door.

I had had enough.

It took me exactly three seconds to do that, plus to turn the knob violently, moving the piece of wood that separated me from the outside world. When I looked up to the person I was about to send an Aveda to, my breathing stilled, and I froze. "D-Draco?" I whispered; a child faced to faced with his boogeyman. Only mine was a person, whose face was full of concern. This wasn't right. I left him.

"'Mione, it's me. I—"

"W-what are you doing here?"

He looked at me, his eyes nursing an intensity I couldn't bear to look away from. "Fighting for us."

And then he brought out a small rectangular object, and my eyes widened. A tape recorder?

"Draco, what—"

"Shh," he told me gently, and then he pressed a button.

Someone was screaming—no, calling to someone. The helplessness I heard was sickening, but it was no match to the words I heard, to the sincerity I heard. "That I love him? That I'm afraid? That this baby I'm carrying will grow up without a father because her mother was too afraid to give him a chance?"

I heard a loud click, and realized the recording was over, but I was still staring at the device. I could not speak, nor could I move.

Draco did it for the both of us. "I love you, too, Granger," his voice came out soft, quiet. "And I won't leave you. No matter what you do, I won't leave you, because I love you."

At that moment, my knees gave out, and I was sliding toward the floor, just as tears kept flowing from my eyes. Salty and real—real, like the person in front of me, who knelt before me, tipped my chin toward his face, and gently started kissing the trail of my tears.

"I love you, God, I love you," he kept whispering, in between kisses, which made me cry harder. "Just trust me. Just trust me, and believe in us." He pulled back, and slowly I raised my eyes to his mercurial ones. "Please?"

And I heard him, heard Ginny, heard myself, until something died and was quickly replaced with a burst of something else entirely—something pleasant and good, something magnificent and wonderful, something I deserved.

It was my turn. I leaned forward and captured his lips in a kiss.