"There's no need to be so antsy, Hermione." Ron smiled as he led the way into King's Cross Station. "Rose is going to be fine. It's not like she's going to Hogwarts alone, you know."
Hermione smiled at him, glanced down at a grinning Rose to her left and a pouting Hugo to her right. When neither they nor Ron were looking at her, her "antsy" state returned, and it had nothing to do with the reasons that her husband presumed.
The moment Rose got her Hogwarts letter Hermione's anxiety levels had been on the rise; not to mention they'd been increasing the closer it became to September 1st. Every magical child would be heading into King's Cross Station with their families so they could board the Hogwarts Express. Harry and Ginny would be there. James was going into his third year while Albus would be starting his first. The previous two years Hermione had been invited to tag along with the Potters to accompany James to the station and say their goodbyes for the academic year. And both years Hermione had managed to get out of it and stay at home. But now this year, now that it was her own child, she couldn't hide away at home. Six more times after this –no, eight more times once it was Hugo's turn to board the train in the next two years.
Hermione supposed that there was a chance, however slight it may have been, that she could avoid him. As she and her family walked through the wall between platforms nine and ten, it was just as busy as it always was. There were families upon families there, hundreds of children. The odds of being able to pick out his face (and vice versa, hers) from this mass of moving bodies were low. That gave Hermione some comfort.
"There they are." Ron said as he spied Harry and his sister with their kids walking through the crowd. "And I thought I was supposed to be the one to always be late." He added to Hermione in a laugh.
Hermione joined in the laughter. She helped Rose with her rucksack while Ron made sure the last of her luggage was onto the train. As Ginny greeted them, Harry knelt by Albus' side not too far off, and James was yelling about Teddy kissing Victoire as she, too, boarded the train, Hermione's heart stopped. No longer was she paying attention to anything around her with the exception of one blonde man who also seemed to have tuned out everything around him except for her.
"That's Scorpius Malfoy, Rosie." Ron was telling his daughter. "Beat him out in every exam, every essay, everything."
"Ron!" Ginny scolded.
Normally Hermione would have joined in her friend in the admonishment of her husband, but she was transfixed. Draco was too. She knew, not because he continued to blatantly stare in her direction, but because Astoria, his wife, was talking to him and he obviously wasn't listening. He soon gave a curt nod towards her, but soon she realized it was to Harry who had given him a friendly nod first. And why wouldn't they acknowledge each other? Harry did save his life in the Room of Requirement after all, and that warranted a bit of mutual respect.
"I'll miss you mum, dad." Rose said, breaking Hermione's concentration. "You too freckle-face." She added to Hugo who rolled his eyes but still gave his sister a hug before she finally boarded the train. The last of all the children were stepping onto the illustrious Hogwarts Express and parents all along the train track's edge were waving and saying their farewells, most with tearful eyes.
Hermione wasn't one of them. Aside from the fact that Rose's head wasn't one of the many children's that was sticking out of one of the train's windows, Hermione's gaze had followed back to Draco who was staring at her much like she thought he would be. She tried to discern the emotions that he was fighting hard to keep from surfacing. Was it regret? Was it love? Was it anger? Hermione feared for it to be the last one for he was indeed angry the last they spoke. It was an awful way to end things, and the hurt look on his face when she had turned him away haunted her even after all of these years. Perhaps her eventual, albeit unintentional denial of him caused him heartache at night as well.
"The train's gone, 'Mione. You can stop waving goodbye now." Ron chuckled as he gently grasped her hand that was moving in the air. Hermione hadn't even realized and she smiled bashfully as she allowed her husband to continue to hold her hand and lead her away from the platform. She allowed herself one last look back and frowned.
Draco was gone.
With an internal sigh she determined that perhaps it was just she who still harbored feelings for the unattainable.
"Oh, I just can't wait to find out how Scorpius likes it." Astoria gushed. "He'll absolutely adore the Slytherin common room."
Draco robotically nodded, smiled, and replied to his wife's words and had been doing so from the moment he had spotted Hermione at platform 9 ¾.
Hermione.
Hermione.
The forbidden love of his life had been at King's Cross Station to see her daughter off with that oaf of a husband of hers. Draco knew that she would be there but even then it still didn't stop the star-struck look that must've adorned his face when he'd seen her. What a failure he'd been after all the time he'd spent preparing himself for this. And it wasn't just months either, for he did know that Hermione had given birth to a daughter the same year he'd had his son. That's not to say that Draco had been stalking his former lover's life. Not really, no. But how could he not know almost every move she'd made since the war when the Daily Prophet took it upon themselves to write a small excerpt on her and her cohorts every few months? With that said, the blonde who now traversed his home sans his wife with a somber expression had been preparing himself for the day that he might see Hermione the moment he'd learned she'd married Weasley five years after the war.
"Pathetic," Draco scolded himself. He added a curse on top of that as he stared into the mirror in his bathroom. He looked worn and tired. He also looked sad. Hell, he didn't just look it, he was sad. He was sad and remorseful, but happy to know that he was no longer angry. He had been angry at Hermione for a long time, but over the years he eventually succumbed to the realization that their continued relationship would've been catastrophic.
But was this any better?
Draco loved Astoria. He really did. But his wife could only fill his heart so much when pieces of Hermione were still so deeply lodged. However hideous the metaphor, Hermione was a virus that he couldn't shake. And he didn't want to. She'd been a part of his life for three years –since they were fourteen. It had been the year when his mindset had begun to change and he had started to realize that the morals shaped by his family and those around him were nothing but pure hogwash.
No one had known it yet, but the Dark Lord was soon to be on the rise again. That summer, the year of the Quiditch World Cup and the Tri-Wizard Tournament at Hogwarts, was nothing to compare to the chaos and turmoil that would follow years later, but it was still the start. Draco had questioned (to himself and himself alone) what need was there for mass murder. At the time he still considered muggleborns to be beneath him and a disgrace to wizarding society, and maybe a little hurtful (but not lethal or terribly harmful) curse here or there would be okay, but torture? Slow, agonizing deaths? Perhaps that was how many of his elder counterparts had started out –with "harmless" pranks, curses, and hexes on the unsuspecting while they were children, and then as time wore on they turned their attention from childish antics to "big boy" magic.
That year Draco had had a glimpse of what the future held, and already he had known that he wanted no part in it. He didn't know what had come over him that night. He also didn't know why that out of everyone there that he could've said something to, it was to Hermione, however indirectly.
Childish banter at the Golden Trio it had been, but the message had been said nonetheless. He'd told Potter and Weasley to get Hermione out of there. With their luck he was sure that they'd be fine, but he had felt better knowing that he'd said something. That he'd done something.
He only wish he could've done more over the following years…
Draco was the reason why Hermione tried to raise her children with the most neutral opinion of others as possible. It was her belief that any two people could get along given the right circumstances, and if her and Draco's secret love affair wasn't proof of that then she had no idea what would.
Fourth Year.
Fourth Year had been the year for change. That night of the Quiditch World Cup attack Draco's words had stuck with her and right then and there she'd known that something was going on. Sure, the horde of Deatheaters marching through the field was a clear indicator that terrible times were ahead, but the fact that Draco had seem so full of foreknowledge of the event had sparked something in Hermione to make her want to know more. And who else would know about the dark side of things than him?
Hermione would never dare to approach him and outright ask, of course. So, she snooped. Harry and Ron weren't speaking to each other at the time, which meant that she only hung out with one friend at a time, which further meant ditching that one friend instead of two at once made things a bit easier. Hermione spent her alone time tracking Draco down. She used as many charms and spells as she could to listen in on conversations, to spy at him from a distance –including one to read his lips. She'd done this right up until the first Tri-Wizard task and felt pretty proud of herself for being so stealthy. That is until one evening when the halls were oddly deserted that she felt a firm hand grab her upper arm and yank her back into an empty classroom. She'd been met with cold, angry grey eyes and a wand pointed directly at her.
"You've got one chance to tell me why you've been following me, mudblood, or else only one of us is leaving this classroom."
To say that Hermione was scared would be an understatement. She'd seen Draco mad before, but this was something else. This was something…sinister. Regardless of how she felt, she raised her head proudly, swallowed, and balled her fists.
"Because you know something." She'd said. "Something about the Deatheaters."
Draco's grip on his wand had tightened, his eyes narrowing at her reply. "Oh? And what makes you say that?"
"You warned us. Harry, Ron, and me. You told us to leave, and you wouldn't have done it unless…unless you knew something bad was about to happen."
A flicker of realization had flashed across his features. His wand arm had slackened some, but he still hadn't lowered his wand. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. Doesn't mean that I'm a treasure trove of information, Granger. And even if I was…I could never tell you."
It was that moment. It had been that one moment when Hermione knew that something was off about the blonde boy who'd constantly made her and her friends' lives hell. In that one last sentence his visage had faltered. He'd also made a slip. He hadn't said that he would never tell her, but simply that he couldn't. Draco was a boy her age who was restrained in the things that he could say whether it was because of who she was, what she was or the information he carried. The weight of the world had been in that phrase, and Hermione couldn't have felt sorrier for him.
The rest of Draco's Fourth Year had left him feeling vulnerable. Hermione never looked at him the same ever again. Instead of anger at his antics he could see a level of sympathy that he hadn't wanted from her. What did she know about what was going on behind Malfoy Manor's doors? What did she know about the diabolical things that happened when he was and wasn't there? What did she know about the most evil dark wizard who was soon to grace the world with his presence once again? The harshest look for him to bare was soon after Cedric Diggory's death. Potter's claims that Voldemort was back had struck fear into everyone –everyone except Hermione that is. It seemed that she had known some dark horror was soon to come, and the fact that this was it hadn't surprised her.
"Draco, you haven't touched your breakfast." Astoria said as she prodded him with a manicured finger. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." He lied, a reassuring smile on his lips. "Just not very hungry this morning."
"If you say so. On another note Scorpius loves Slytherin House. Not that I doubted it, of course."
Draco smiled for real this time and slipped the letter his son had written home out of his wife's hand. "'Madam Hooch says that First Years aren't allowed on House Quiditch teams,'" He read aloud. "'It's completely unfair. You know how great a flyer I am. Why did Harry Potter get to be on his House team his first year and nobody else can? What a crock…' Merlin, I hope I wasn't this bitter when I was kid."
"Oh, Draco, stop it." Astoria chided playfully. "He is right, you know. Potter was nothing but a walking exemption to every school rule."
"Don't go talking about school rules. You'll sound like Hermione. Granger," He added quickly. His wife didn't notice and merely chuckled.
"You mean Weasley." She corrected. "She did marry that redhead, didn't she?"
Draco suppressed a scowl. "Yeah, she did."
Aside from Hermione's final refusal of him, her marriage to Weasley had been a nail in an already closed coffin. She wasn't supposed to love him. She was supposed to be with Draco. He had had plenty of fantasies of what their life was supposed to be like after the war had ended. It had involved a rash decision on their part to leave everything behind. They'd pick themselves up, run to the first person they could find to officiate a marriage, be bonded forever, and live out the rest of their lives with each other –damning anyone who said otherwise to their union.
This, though, was all in Draco's head. And when he had presented his plans for them to the pretty brunette, she'd all but shot a curse through his heart. And now, nineteen years later, he still harbored feelings for the woman who'd crushed him. Pathetic, he called himself once again, but no one was immune to the effects of love. It made you do foolish things. Rash things. Irrational things.
Like excusing yourself from breakfast so you could head to your Owlery.
Like sitting down and picking up a quill to write a short letter to your past love.
Like attaching it to one of your owls.
And like sending it off through the large window and watching the bird grow smaller in the distance.
Author's note: The hiatus is over! Thanks for bearing with me while I took some time away to write. This I wrote in about two weeks after seeing this Dramione trailer on YouTube called "Draco & Hermione 'Run Away with Me' - Say Something by hptrio. It's another one of my mini stories, four chapters only with each chapter a little longer than the previous. For those of you waiting for the third installment of the Condemned Series, don't worry, it's still coming! I'm finishing it up, but I had promised to come back in February and I didn't want to disappoint. So here's a little something :D.
The next chapter will be up on Wednesday :). Please leave your comments and you're welcome to PM me anytime!
-WP
