A/N:
Ok, so here it is, the final chapter! Hope you've enjoyed reading it
as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
I added some to the end of
the previous chapter. I also added a warning that this chapter
contains DH spoilers. The whole chapter is really a spoiler. Anyway,
hope you'll like it.
Twenty years later
Hermione felt very nervous as she was sitting next to Ron in their car, going to King's Cross station. She'd had that feeling ever since she woke up this morning, way too early, and it had only increased as she lay awake, listening to Ron snoring loudly. It was, of course, because she didn't know how she would react when she saw Draco Malfoy once again.
She had been thinking about this day for over a month now, and had re-lived the time they had spent together in their sixth grade, and remembered how devestated she had been when he left and she had been aware what he had been planning all the time they had seen each other. Well, she was over it now, and was living a happy life with Ron. Still, she couldn't help but sometimes think about how different her life could have been if Draco had stayed at Hogwarts.
In a way, he had made her a great favour by disappearing. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone would find out about them, and obviously she hadn't been able to break up with him, so his flight had made everything much easier, despite the hurt and loss she'd felt. But she didn't dare think of how much worse it would've been if they got caught and her friends found out about her betrayal.
"Okay, here we are! King's Cross!" Ron called, waking her out of her thoughts. "Help me finns a good parking spot, will you?" he said to her, and took his eyes off the road a little too long.
"Ron! Watch it!" she yelled as he was almost about to run over a pedestrian crossing the street.
"Oh, nevermind, I have complete control" he told her confidently. She snorted.
After a while, they found a good spot, Ron parked the car with some difficulty, and then they started lifting out Rose's trunk and placed it on a trolley. Hermione let Ron do most of the work, as her mind wasn't really there, but he didn't seem to notice it.
When they reached the barrier, she allowed Ron to take Rose through it first, then went after them with Hugo holding her hand.
The platform was invisible because of the thick white fog from the train, but Ron and Rose were waiting for them a few steps away. They all went a little further along the platform, then stopped some distance away from the barrier and waited for Harry and Ginny and their children to come.
Hermione was suddenly aware that someone was watching her, and she didn't need to think too hard who that could be. Draco had arrived too. But she couldn't start looking for him, not just yet, she had to gather some strenght before that. Knowing that he was watching her made her very self conscious though, as if she saw herself through his eyes: every movement, every word she spoke, every reaction to what her loved ones said.
"You're being ridiculous" a familiar, yet seldom heard voice in her head told her.
"I know. But I can't help it."
Then, she took a deep breath, turned around and looked him straight in the eyes. The power of his gaze was stronger than she had imagined, and it hit her like a blow in the abdomen, almost making her lose her breath. His eyes expressed so much: longing, sadness, obsession. It frightened her a bit, but it also made her remember his warm lips, the softness of his kisses, what he smelled like, the feeling of his skin under her fingers. A part of her longed to be sixteen again, and to be with him once more in the Room of Requirement, without worries.
A movement beside her made her look away, and through the fog, now thinner than before, she saw Harry, Ginny, Albus and Lily approaching them. They exchanged some words and helped lift Albus's trunk on to the train. Then Ron noticed Draco and made Harry attentive, too. She saw that Draco was a bit disturbed as they were all staring at him, then he nodded curtly and turned away.
"So that's little Scorpius" she heard Ron mutter. "Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."
"Ron, for heaven's sake" she said, trying to sound amused by this comment. "Don't try to turn them agains each other before they've even started school!"
"You're right, sorry. Don't gettoo friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pure-blood."
This comment made Hermione very sad, but she showed nothing. If Ron only knew.
While the others were talking about something else, she took another look at Draco, who was looking at her again. This time, she wasn't as affected by him as before. She knew it wouldn't have lasted, it was too complicated. Her friends would never have accepted it, and most of all, his family certainly wouldn't.
The thought of his family brought yet another memory to the surface: when Draco's aunt Bellatrix had tortured her, using the cruciatus curse. Draco had done nothing to help her. Of course, she understood why, but at that moment, she had realised that Ron was much better for her.
She looked at her husband helping their eldest board the train, and her heart swelled. Loving Ron was easier, mostly because they had been friends for such a long time, and his family didn't mind where she came from and who her parents were. But she had never felt that strange, undeniable attraction to him as she had to Draco. Hers and Ron's love was more safe, more mature. Well, she was a grown woman now, and what else should she have but a mature relationship?
She turned away from Draco and joined her family. She kissed her daughter goodbye, told her to send them an owl when she had arrived at Hogwarts, and then watched the train leave the station. Then, without looking back, she left platform nine and three-quarters with her family and her best friends, convinced that the next time she would see Draco wouldn't be so hard.
X – X - X
She had not seen him yet. He thought it was rather amazing that she hadn't, he felt like his gaze was like a laser on her, and that the energy from it should make her notice him. Of course, he had spotted her as soon as he had reached platform nine and three-quarters, and he had immediately been launched back twenty years, back to the happiest time he could remember. He thought about that for a while. Yes, it had been a happy time, despite the constant fear and agony about his task and what the Dark Lord would do to him if he did not succeed, because he'd had her to look forward to. The memory of their first kiss made him smile. How surprised he had been, that she, of all people, would kiss him. His first reaction had been to draw back, but then he couldn't resist to kiss her, too. It had been a really wonderful feeling, but as soon as he realised that, he had reacted with anger and misdirected it towards her. He had sometimes tourtured himself with the memory of the look on her face when he had offended her after dinner that day. But more painful was when he remembered the look on her face when they met in the entrance hall. Her eyes, so full of confusion, shock, sadness and panic, were etched onto his eyelids.
She was beautiful, as she had been back then, but now she was a grown woman, and she had married that… that red-haired moron. He already knew that, of course, he knew all about her, but seeing them together really hurt, and filled him with jealousy. It ought to be him that was telling jokes to make her laugh. It ought to be him that was looking at her so lovingly. It ought to be him that was standing with her on the platform, watching their first child go off to Hogwarts. It made him want to shout out at the top of his lungs, it was all so unfair!
He looked at his wife. She was talking to Scorpius, tucking in his shirt and making sure he looked proper. Their marriage was really cold, he thought with a sigh, had been fo many years now. That was probably why they had only concieved one child. It wasn't her fault, really. After years of drunken nights out and meningless loose connections to try to get Hermione off his mind, he had felt it was time to settle down, and had managed to persuade himself that he was in love. But he had soon discovered that the only one he could think of was Hermione Granger.
He hadn't realised how much those meetings in the Room of Reqiurement with her had meant to him until he'd left, but by then it had been brutually clear to him. It had been awful to spend long days with his mother and aunt as only company, followed by even longer nights where he lay awake, thinking of what might have been, if only. If only she wasn't muggle-born. If only that didn't matter. If only he hadn't been appointed that horrible task. If only he hadn't left Hogwarts with Snape that night. If only he could see her one more time, and explain everything to her.
When their mansion had become the head quarters for the Dark Lord and his followers, he would have been able to push her out of his mind, because he'd had to witness things he wished he could forget. But the more awful things he saw, the more he kept seeing her face, as the only good thing that had happened in his life.
And one day, she was there, in his home. He'd had a hard time believing it, but there she was, just as he had remembered her. Of course, they had both pretended that they didn't know eachother. It had been really painful to watch his aunt torture her, but he couldn't reveal what had happened between them. At one brief moment, her eyes had met his, and he saw that she understood, and that was worst of all, that she didn't expect him to do anything to help her. And all the while, he had heard Weasly shouting her name from the cellar. He wasn't afraid of the consequences of showing his feelings.
Suddenly, she looked up and saw him. Their eyes locked and he could feel that tingling sensation, like electricity, that he'd always felt around her. He tried to examine her eyes and what they displayed. He was afraid he would see hatred in them, but instead, he thought he saw sadness and longing there. Was she thinking of him as much as he thought of her? He wanted so badly to go up to her, take her in his arms and kiss her, without thinking about the consequences, without caring about how everyone would react. But he stood rooted to the ground, unable to do anything than watch her. But he didn't avert his eyes, and neither did she, until Potter and his family arrived. For a while, he couldn't see what she was doing, but soon he noticed that Weasly had seen him. Draco turned his head quickly away. When he looked over again they were all staring at him, but his eyes met Hermione's once again and he felt his heart leap. He nodded curtly and turned to his son. His wife was talking to a mother of one of Scorpius's friends.
"Come here, son" he said as he crouched down to the same hight as Scorpius. "I want to talk to you before you leave."
"Yes, father?"
"You see that girl over there?" he said and pointed discretely at Rose, Hermione's daughter.
"Yes."
"I don't want you to be mean to her, okay?"
His son frowned.
"But, her mother's a Mudblood."
"I don't want you to use that word!"
"But Grandpa says…"
"I don't care what he says! I don't want to hear you're giving that girl a hard time. Or her brother when he starts school."
His son looked at him in disbelief. Draco hoped that he would do as he told him, despite the fact that they didn't have a very close relationship. Scorpius was really his wife's son, and though he resembled Draco a lot he didn't feel as connected to him as he ought to be.
Quickly he added "I want you to behave when it comes to those other children, too." He hoped that this would make his request less suspiciouc to Scorpius. "I owe all of their parents a great deal" he continued. "They saved my life once".
To his relief, his son seemed to settle for that.
Draco watched as his wife helped Scorpius board the train, then waved at him as the train started to move, wondering how he would manage to spend every day in his mansion with his wife as only company. Perhaps he would have to say he had a lot of work to do, again.
When the train was out of sight, he was still standing on the same spot as he watched Hermione leave with her family and friends. He wouldn't see her again until the end of next semester.
He would be counting the days.
The end