Sometime Around Midnight

And it starts
Sometime around midnight
Or at least that's when
You lose yourself
For a minute or two

Draco glanced at the clock on the wall. He thought he could stand the last few minutes until midnight, and then would be a perfectly acceptable time to make his excuses. His gaze wandered around the room, taking in the women in expensive dresses and men in suits that were clearly not as expensive as their wearers would have the rest of the world believe. The party was just starting to come to a close now, and five years ago he would've been appalled at them all. Midnight was a better man's dawn chorus, his friend Blaise used to tell him whenever he threatened to call it a night anytime before the sun started to come up. But no, here they all were, or at least here some of them were, all this time later, and apparently when you were nearly in your mid-thirties parties were over by the time published on the invitation. What was more surprising, however, was that this didn't bother him. Maybe he was turning into his father after all.

He looked down into the dregs of his glass. Empty. Signalling to the bartender, he let his head drop slightly as his shoulders hunched so his hair hung over his face. What was he doing here?

The question had been plaguing him since about three o'clock this afternoon, when he'd arrived. Sprawling lawns and a grand old house and lavish flower arrangements… Draco could see her in all of it, but it was like a mockery of something she'd dreamt up. He knew that, because he'd planned it all with her. A different time, he reminded himself.

The bartender handed him his drink with a look made it crystal clear how little she wanted to be here. You and me both, he grimaced at her. She made a face and turned away. He took a sip and glanced up to see a red-head in heels walking towards him, a sad smile on her face.

"Hey." She said with a sad smile on her face. "How're you doing?"

"Alright." He replied, realising he was possibly a little more drunk than he'd thought as he had to stop himself falling towards her. "How're you?"

She held his gaze steadily, a searching look on her freckled features. "I've been better." She said finally, looking away and to the far side of the room. "It's not a great day for people like us, is it?"

He smirked. "Not as such, no. Great excuse to abuse the open bar, though. Drink? I'm buying." He winked at her, and her sad smile was back. "Oh lighten up, Weasley. It's not poison, I promise."

"Not drinking, but thanks anyway." There was a pause, during which Draco took several glugs of his drink. "Lovely ceremony."

Draco looked at her in alarm, to find her staring at a couple on the dance floor. "Oh, just delightful. And the centre pieces, weren't they gorgeous?" She nodded vaguely. "And what did you think of the Veela display during the speeches? I was worried it might be distracting, but frankly I think it added a much needed sense of humour to the whole afternoon." He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to register what he'd said, but she just nodded again.

That was where he was, too. That place in your head where you can go and everything is lovely, everything is right, everything is just as it should be but while you're there your eyes lose focus ever so slightly, and you can't really concentrate on what the real world is saying… he was there too. He wondered what her happy place was like. He'd never ask, though. They had an understanding, which almost made him laugh; Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy reaching an 'understanding'? It made him laugh. Almost.

As you stand...
Under the barlights
And the band plays some song
About forgetting yourself for a while
And the piano's this melancholy soundtrack
To her smile
And that white dress she's wearing
You haven't seen her
For a while

All things considered, he thought, it had been a fairly decent way to spend a day. Free alcohol, great food, spectacular location, even the rain had held out for her… Weather, he thought immediately. He was small-talking with himself about the weather. Bad sign. It was all devastatingly elegant; even the napkins were embroidered with their guest's initials. Draco wondered what he should do with his. She would've kept it, putting it in that entirely useless drawer of hers; the purpose of which he could never (and would never) understand.

"They're keepsakes, Malfoy. All these things are to remind me." She'd said one day, after putting something completely irrelevant (probably about as useful as an ivory cloth napkin) into said drawer.

"Of what?" He'd asked, not really waiting for the answer. His focus had been on her legs, and how they looked underneath his shirt from the night before.

"Memories." Had been her soft reply, running her fingers over something that was already in there before she'd closed it with a snap and a shake of her head. Then she'd turned to face him with that breath-taking smile she had, and offered him some orange juice.

His initials, he noticed, were embroidered in her handwriting.

"Why do you think we're here?" Ginny asked him.

Draco snorted into another sip of his gin and tonic. Hadn't he been wondering exactly that not ten minutes earlier? He cocked his head to one side and followed her gaze. "Comic relief?"

She smiled, and he was grateful. He didn't have the best track record with tearful females. "We're doing a rubbish job. I've never felt less funny."

He made a non-committal noise, somewhere between agreement and indifference. "I'm not sure either."

She sighed and her eyes flicked to the ceiling. "Do you want to dance?"

He very nearly snorted again. "Really?" Draco wanted to leave, but they had their understanding. "Sure, why not." He took her hand and led her towards the lights of the dance floor. The band was playing a song that he knew for a fact she didn't like, but he found it quite comforting to think she was probably irritated. He wondered if Ginny was holding his shoulder and thinking of someone else.

And then, for the first time in nearly a year, Draco looked at her. Really looked at her. And she was dazzling. She looked just as he'd imagined she would, eyes sparkling and smile radiant, her dress finishing just below her knees in a flourish of intricate lace detail. Her dance partner was facing away from him, but Draco could see it was her father, and paused for a moment to think about the conversation they two had had, all that time ago, when everyone had thought that she belonged to Draco.

"Well I can't say this isn't a surprise." Mr Granger began, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt. "Jean and I guessed things were going this way some time ago, I just didn't expect you to ask me first."

Draco handed him the trowel before going back to preening the roses. "This is how I'd want it done." He shrugged.

Mr Granger smiled. "Yes, I expect that's true." They went on gardening for a while; the only sound was Hermione and her mother's laughter as they washed up spilling out of the kitchen window towards them. "Did you think I'd say no?"

Draco considered. "Well obviously I hoped you wouldn't… I rather thought you might have noticed how much she means to me by now."

"And how much is that?"

"Everything." He replied, without a second thought. "She is everything to me."

The song had changed, and Hermione was dancing with her husband now. They were smiling intimately at each other, looking adoringly into each other's eyes, swept away by their shared happiness.

But you know...
That she's watching
She's laughing, she's turning
She's holding her tonic like a cross
The room suddenly spinning
She walks up and asks how you are
So you can smell her perfume
You can see her lying naked in your arms

Ginny mumbled something about needing some air, so Draco was alone. Well, as alone as anyone can be in a room full of people. The last sip of his drink disappeared, so he walked the beaten track back to the bar and ordered another. And another.

He registered briefly that he'd planned to leave sometime earlier, but he ordered another drink instead. No need to waste the open bar, he reminded himself. He watched the dancers twirling for a few minutes, and was just deciding to join Ginny for that air when she looked at him. She had stopped dancing several songs before (it was pointless Draco trying to pretend he hadn't noticed, even to himself) and was instead talking to Mr and Mrs Weasley, who looked to be on their way out. Was that a smile playing across her face? She pressed a kiss to each of their cheeks and then- no, she wouldn't. But here she came, advancing towards him around the dancing couples and Draco thought he could hear the funeral march in his head.

"Hi." She breathed.

He looked at her before replying. "You look beautiful."

She blushed and ducked her head. "Thank you, Draco, that's very kind of you to say." Wasn't it ironic that even hearing his own name from her lips could cause him pain? "Are you enjoying yourself? I saw you dancing with Ginny earlier; I was impressed she managed to get your dancing shoes on…" She tailed off, and Draco thought that she must have regretted the decision to come over here almost as soon as she'd started walking.

"Well you know I can't resist when a wedding band do something as mind-blowingly original like cover a Beatles song. Where else would I be but on the dance floor?"

She half-laughed. "I did ask them not to, but maybe they thought I wouldn't notice this many drinks into the evening."

He reached towards her nearly empty glass of transparent liquid. "Speaking of, can I get you something? Which country are we in this evening?" In that other time, they'd come up with a game to avoid getting bored of ordering the same drinks each time they went to the pub. Country by country, they'd travelled around the world, finding places in the city that somehow managed to source Singani from Bolivia and Pisco from Peru. Another time.

"Oh, no thank you, I'm not actually drinking this evening."

She blushed again, and Draco was about to make a joke about her and Ginny having some sort of conspiracy to stay sensible all of a sudden, when he noticed that her free hand, the one that wasn't clutching her glass, had come to rest on her stomach.

He broke.

"How many do you want then?" He asked, locking his fingers with hers and drawing her hand towards him.

"Um… two?" She rolled over towards him, smiling into his shoulder. "Or three?"

"Three? Three more Grangers to contend with? I'm not sure I'd live to tell the tale."

"Well they wouldn't be Grangers, would they? They'd be Malfoys, so really, it's me and the rest of wizarding society that should be on their guard."

He smiled into her hair. "When do we start then? I want to meet them; they sound like they'd really be something." This was his favourite time to be with her. When she lost the strain at the corners of her mouth and stopped worrying about everybody else before she worried about herself. She had surprised him with how content she managed to be when they were alone. Most of the time she was thinking of a million different things for a million different people… because it was like the three of them, she and Harry and Ron, had come home from all they'd done and they'd needed her to put them back together. Which she did. She kept them all from falling off the edge, but who was there to help her? Draco had assumed, before he'd known her, that that was all she was. The keeper of everybody else; the one that propped up the true champions. So when they'd started to spend time together, and he'd seen just how much she had to give… well he'd fallen too. Not quite off the edge, but far enough to fall into her.

She was looking up at him from under her lashes, smiling and reaching up to pull his head down to meet hers.

Draco shook himself. It's her wedding, he thought. Not the time to be remembering what she looked like in your bed.

And so there's a change...
In your emotions
And all of these memories come rushing
Like feral waves to your mind
Of the curl of your bodies
Like two perfect circles entwined
And you feel hopeless, and homeless
And lost in the haze
Of the wine

But he didn't want to be there. He couldn't take seeing her like this; he'd thought it was enough to see her happy, but it wasn't. She should be happy with him, and this whole day was wrong. He needed air.

"Congratulations." He managed to choke out, before lurching away from her towards the door. He would find Ginny and some air. That was the plan.

He glanced back when reached the door, still foolishly hoping that she'd be stood in the same place staring sadly after him… but no, and one day he'd learn, because she was back in the arms of her new husband as they said goodbye to some of her work friends. As she reached to shake one of their hands, the spotlight shone from behind her and caught her silhouette in the pearly brightness. Draco wondered if he'd ever have this again, this connection with someone that meant even though he'd seen her in a thousand different lights on a thousand different days, she took his breath away every time.

He found that most astonishing, that after more than ten years, she was still the one he thought of and the one he wanted to talk to every moment. And it had been easy enough, right at the beginning, to pretend like he didn't want her in his arms instead of across the room, flirting with someone that for so long she'd assured Draco was 'just a friend'. But even then he'd been kidding himself. He'd thought, he'd genuinely believed, for just long enough for it to have made a difference, that she would come back to him. Because hadn't she told him, over and over again, that she would love him forever? That what they'd had and what they'd shared would last longer than a lifetime… so of course he had known, he had been so certain, that eventually she would realise that this would become something they laughed about together when they were old and all this was just a memory. But she had lied, or she had changed her mind, or maybe he had just not been enough, and now she was gone.

She was walking several steps ahead of Draco, and he followed her with a smile. "Are you sure you know where you're going?" He asked.

Hermione glanced behind her, her eyes wide in mock astonishment. "Are you doubting my navigational skills, Mr Malfoy?"

He hid another smile. "I would never. But we do seem a bit… lost." He finished.

"We are not lost!" She marched on, and he fell even further back, choosing to watch her hair streaming in the wind and admire her rosy cheeks. She was right, of course, they weren't lost. Hermione had taken them to the top of a hill with a picnic, just the sort of outdoor activity she insisted they do together, complete with chequered blanket and wicker picnic hamper. They had passed through the point of total head-over-heels passion; Draco could remember very clearly a time not all that long ago when they couldn't keep their hands off each other for long enough to get to the supermarket to buy milk, but that was over now. He had to admit that though he missed the excitement, this new-found level of comfort and actual peace, for the first time since he could remember, was something of a relief. So there they sat, on the chequered picnic blanket, each with a book, partly reading, partly enjoying the silence and the view.

After some time, she put her book down and looked at him. "Draco," she started. "Draco I need you to know something."

He shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted into the sunlight. "Okay…"

"Because over the past year, well longer than that really, I've come to rely on you. No, more than that, I need you. In fact, I think, all things considered… well I rather think I love you. And I think I might carry on loving you for a very long time." She finished and fixed her gaze on her entwined hands in her lap.

He reached over and took one of her hands. "Do you promise?" He almost whispered. She smiled.

She had been home for him. After all the mess and chaos that his parents had left behind when they died, she had been home. Now that she was gone, from the minute she had left their house to stay with her parents for a few days and every second since, there had been this crushing pain in the bottom of his stomach. She was his home, and what can anyone do when their home doesn't want them anymore?

And she leaves...
With someone you don't know
But she makes sure you saw her
She looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door
Your blood boiling
Your stomach in ropes
And when your friends say what is it
You look like you've seen a ghost

Outside, he glanced around for Ginny but couldn't see her. Draco approached the stone balcony and rested his arms against it, gazing out over the lawn that was glowing with the light of dozens lanterns. He was drunk now, there was no denying it. This had been the way for longer than Draco would like to admit when she'd left. Night after night of finding excuses to lose himself to the kind of oblivion he used to pity, followed by all those morning afters of Ron peeling him off the sofa and leaving him under the steady stream of water in the shower just long enough for him to start feeling as though his skin was melting off his body. He'd forgotten how good the night before had felt, though. This new kind of normal where straight lines bent and wobbled before his eyes and things that usually weighed heavy on his mind, on his heart, were somehow suddenly feather-light and easy to ignore.

"Draco!" He frowned as a sharp voice penetrated the shroud of whiskey and approaching drowsiness. "Jesus, Malfoy, you can't even stand up straight…" He glanced down at himself and to his surprise saw that the irritating red-headed bint was right; he was almost lying over the balcony and even as he tried to get up his legs felt jelly-like and unresponsive.

Draco tried to respond, to defend himself but only succeeded in groaning in pain. "I can't-" He started to say something cutting but he found he'd already forgotten what it was. He only dimly registered Ginny hoisting him to a vaguely upright position and hauling him back towards the doors, partly because his brain seemed to be operating with a several-minute delay to the rest of the world, including his various limbs, but mostly because what remained of Draco's consciousness was focused on the gravel pathway below the balcony.

He could tell it was going to be her before he saw her. He always could. There was laughter on her face and her cheeks were flushed rosy pink as she clutched her husband's arm and they smiled their way down the rows of friends and family towards their new life. He tried to speak again, but Ginny hushed him and said, "I know, I know. I feel it too."

They were arguing again. Draco hated it, this constant struggle to get back to normal and the forced affection and strained smiles just making them angrier. "What are you talking about?! Ron's new girlfriend is FINE! Okay so she won't be finding a thirteenth use for dragon's blood anytime soon but then neither will you! What's the big deal?"

"How can you even make this about intelligence? This is so not-"

"Because it so obviously IS about that!" Draco cut across her, turning angrily to the window to stare out at the rain streaking down the pane of glass. "It was exactly the same with when Neville was dating that Muggle-"

"Oh no, don't you dare bring that into it, I had enough of that when it happened. I mean for God's sake the guy was a total idiot! He thought cars that run on water were the 'next big thing'!" Her voice dripped with mocking sarcasm and Draco shuddered in exasperation. She had such high expectations of everyone, all the time. It was exhausting.

"Okay, okay. Fine, you're right. She enjoys reading Witch Weekly and she was in Hufflepuff, and you're completely right; those reasons are enough to ruin our friend's happiness and behave extremely rudely towards a girl who has been nothing but polite to us. Thank Merlin you're here to guide us through these otherwise unchartered social situations!" He turned away from her, sarcasm dripping from his words. "How anyone can ever hope to live up to the person you want them to be is beyond me."

For a moment Hermione's face was blank. "Having high expectations of people isn't something to be reproached."

He inhaled through his teeth, closing his eyes as though gathering some as yet unfound inner strength. "No, no it isn't at that."

This was how it always was now. One of them would say something that wound the other up, and argument would ensue and continue until one of them either got bored and bowed out or stormed out of the room. It was like they'd forgotten how to have a normal conversation, without lingering silences and the constant searching, searching for the true meaning of what the other was trying to say. He had noticed that she fiddled with her ring – their ring – as though it bothered her, with a distracted look playing across her features, frowning down at her left hand when she thought no one was looking.

And he didn't know how to fix it. His heart was breaking into little shards of what felt like glass every time they had one of these awful exchanges that left him feeling devastated and frustrated and like he was in the wrong, still. He loved her so much, more than he could ever tell anyone with words. Because what can words do? They are so weak, so one dimensional, and what he felt for her felt higher than the clouds, bigger than the sky and better than anything he could describe. For the first time now, for the very first time, it was starting to feel like she didn't think that was enough. He wanted so badly to take her in his arms and whisper that he loved her and that he couldn't wait until they were past this blip, over this horrid bump and back to being them. Somehow, reaching across the seven inches between them in bed seemed harder and harder every night. Never once had he doubted that they would return to how it was before. Never once had it occurred to him that she wouldn't want to.

"Christ, Malfoy, you're white as a sheet. C'mon-" She was cut off as Draco's shoe caught in a crack in the paving slabs and he nearly fell. The ground rushed up to meet him, and he started to smile, greeting it as an old friend.

"Bloody hell." There was a sound- a voice maybe? Something – for it was definitely a something – was buzzing at his ears like an insect. "Bloody HELL, mate. There's vomit all over the bloody doorstep. Hannah? HANNAH!"

Footsteps. "Ah. Again? Gross. Is this because-"

"No. We didn't- I couldn't- it just didn't come up." The voices were getting louder and more distracting.

"Ron! What if he finds out some other way? Ginny's birthday next week- they're bound to be at that! He needs to know before then, you know he does."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I will. I will! I'll do it later. When he's a bit more… alive."

The next time Draco became conscious, he was lying on something much more comfortable, and the acidic, acrid smell from earlier that he hadn't been able to place at the time (but of course, it had been vomit) was gone. Slowly, gingerly, he rolled over onto his side and looked around the room. He was at Ron's house, and Ron himself was sitting on a chair opposite the sofa on which Draco was lying. "Hi." His mouth felt like sandpaper.

From the other side of the coffee table, Ron lifted his head out of his hands and Draco was startled to see a look of pity on his face. He reached for the water that someone had very helpfully put beside him and took a big glug. "What? What is it? If I drunk dialled her again you just need to tell me so I can apologise." He waited. "Merlin what did I do? I'm sorry about your doorstep, I'll clear it up just as soon as I can bring myself up to a vertical position."

Ron hesitated, but only for a second. "Draco, Hermione is with Harry."

Then you walk...
Under the streetlights
And you're too drunk to notice
That everyone is staring at you
You just don't care what you look like
The world is falling
Around you

People were staring, Draco knew. Ginny was having to almost drag him towards a taxi, and he was making a scene. They were at the front of the house now, and the gravel of the driveway was crunching under Ginny's heels. Finding the strength to lift his head was proving tricky. He hadn't drunk that much had he? Well they should blame the people who provided the open bar, not him for taking advantage of it. His stomach heaved.

With a massive effort, he wrenched his head up. In front of him, there was a lamppost styled to look like an old-fashioned gas lamp. It cast everything and everyone around it in a creamy, soft glow. The car just beneath the light was all long shadows and glinting dark metal, but Draco could still see the two figures framed by the odd light in the back window. They were embracing, sharing a last kiss; possibly for the photographers and adoring family members, but more likely just because they were in love, they were married and they could.

There, in front of the grand old house lit by lanterns and hundreds of twinkling fairy lights, propped up only by Ginny Weasley's shoulder and in full view of most of the people he knew, Draco started to cry.

You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her

And you know that she'll break you in two

Disclaimer: characters belong to JK Rowling and the lyrics I have borrowed from The Airborne Toxic Event.