She sits, hugging a pillow to herself. She looked around the flat, a modest one in the truest sense of the world. She was content though. Sitting and contemplating about her medieval existence in the middle of shoddy furniture. Being comfortable about the sensation of wearing almost nothing; a lightweight shirt and lingerie that would be decent in company of the known. It was enough, to say the least. Enough for her. She lays her head back, wondering if she could ever find her way again. She lost her grip on the thread. Her thread. The thread that holds a person's dream, and leads them and is a constant reminder to its fulfillment. She was miles away from that thread, and she was wandering aimlessly. Her vast knowledge was a blunt sword. She was in libido, frozen in time, lost to the world behind the wall of endless thinking and musings.
She was in the library once more; how many times, she did not know. What she did know was the voice that suddenly penetrated her senses, made its way to her brain, forever instilled, forever implicated.
"Granger."
She forced herself to still, to be unaffected, to be a mask of indifference. She did not turn around. She did not look. She knew the implications of what the action may bring. This was chivalry she was doing, and she was doing it for the best. She satisfied herself by drawing from sheer memory what he looked like. The mercurial eyes that always seemed to bore into her very soul that were now staring at her back covered with her untamable curls. The most versatile eyes she could have ever seen in her whole life – maybe even in anybody's life. Tears danced behind her eyelids and a pebble-sized lump in her throat rose.
She pushed them all back.
"Do you need something, Malfoy?"
Her voice was cool, uninterested, unmoved, as if perusing the impossibly thick book would be infinitely better than turning around and talking to him. He straightened his back and stared at the wild beauty of her hair. Why the tresses were compared to a mere animal, he did not know. He was lost in the honeyed world of her mane, so magnificent like a lion's. His eyes moved down her form, so feminine, so slender, so fragile yet so strong. He reflected on the fact that this person he was looking at held all his hopes, how this form held his future.
"Have you decided?"
It was not a question. The last syllable subtly trembled, betraying his hope. His statement begged a simple yes or no. Her world suddenly spun, her senses unable to perform, yet her physical body gave no sign of it. Flashes of color ran through beneath her eyelids.
"I'm sorry."
She heard the sound of fading footsteps.
This time, she let the tears find the way to her robes.
She turned on her side. It was rare, this. When she permitted her mind not only to flitter on this specific memory but to think about it for longer than a nanosecond. She hated regrets, so she mentally dubbed the memory unworthy of her time. But masks and pretty white lies can only go for so long; they will inevitably crumble and expose themselves like a wound unhealed.
The dreaded flashes of light were not only present behind her eyes but also around her. The words to curses, hexes and spells flowed into one another, rendering every sound uttered incomprehensible. Making her unable to distinguish one from the other. In this situation, life was treated and took for granted. One was snuffed every few seconds. Her wand flew in countless patterns, frantically trying to prevent any more, be it her side or theirs. A particular banging noise made her look up from their hurried walk to the Chamber, where she and Ron were tasked to acquire the Basilisk fangs. It happened too fast. A lithe form with blinding hair fell from the railings. The person was still alive, evident in the flailing limbs trying to defy gravity. She had eye contact for a split second and just before the masculine body hit the floor, it suddenly stilled. Almost as if it suddenly accepted death. As if it was infinitely better than forcing his eyes to stay on hers.
She got up. The fact that he hated white lazily crossed her mind.
She wore a white dress.
Her form, so resigned, walked the seven miles. It was nearing dusk. This - this was illogical. What she was doing was illogical. Hermione Granger was never illogical. She knew dark figures with malice in their hearts stalked the streets. She knew she was not immune to them.
She did not care.
She entered the black, forbidding gates, her eyes fixed on a small hill somewhere to the right. Worn by the weather, the slab of stone looked forlorn and uncared for.
Draco Xavier Malfoy
June 5, 1980-May 2, 1998
That was it. No quotation, no clue as to what kind of life the rotted body down below held. She knelt, soiling her dress, her fists clenched so hard that her nails left half-moon marks into her palms.
"I'm sorry."
She uttered the words with a sense of finality, getting up ever so slowly. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She looked at the sunset. She turned her eyes to his grave. She took out her wand and conjured a single white rose, so pristine in the setting sun. She laid it with infinite care.
She took several steps back. Releasing the air from her lungs in a shuddering sigh, she turned her back to him. For how long she would resist, she did not know. Forever, her mind whispered. She wished it so.
Put one foot in front of the other, her mind insisted. Her body followed. She walked back to the gates, walked out of them. She set on her way home.
She did not look back.
End
