Chapter Ten

Harry walked alone to the hotel. He would order room service, but for the commotion that he caused the waiters he left a few knuts. To get his mind off of what Malfoy and Hermione were doing he thought of what would be on the menu.

He thought of Hermione and her eyes. It was hard not to notice them. Coffee with too much milk. He would have to consult the Department of Illegal Brewing and Uses of Potions. He would send a letter to Brians, he was always willing to help with no questions asked. The others in the ministry were all too curious as to what he was doing in his office, as if it would be any different than any other Auror.

He slid the key through the lock waiting for the blinking green light and click, and strode in. He threw the key card on a corner table and then stumbled back, his heart kicking, his wand from his inside jacket pocket held high at a shadow sitting in the chair beneath the drawn drapes. When his heart kicked into slow gear he lowered his wand. It was only Ginny, sipping tea.

"Merlin and Knights, what are you doing here?!"

"Having tea," she answered simply.

"This isn't funny, Gin, you have to stop dropping in like this!"

She shrugged noncommittally. "You didn't write, I worried."

He sat in the chair beside her as she poured him a cup. "She was angry. She yelled. Lucky I wasn't cursed."

"Why would she be? There were two people there that night."

"I didn't tell her about us."

"What did you tell her?"

"That Malfoy wasn't any good."

Mouth open she stole his cup from his outstretched hands, it clattering, the brown tea spilling over the side. "Go back and tell her!"

Harry didn't respond. Elbows on his knees he stared at his clasped hands. He knew he was being cowardly. He could defeat Voldemort but he couldn't face his best friend. Neville had more gumption than he did.

Ginny placed her hand over his. "You have to tell her, Harry. She needs to know." When he was stoic in his silence, she released his hands and straightened her back. "If you don't, I'll tell her." His head snapped to her, but the icy glare didn't deter her. "It'll come better from you but I swear on all twenty of my Pgymy Puffs, I will tell her."

He smiled. "I thought you had eighteen?"

"I did, but Harlond had twins."

Laughing, he thought that she desperately needed to do something else besides training and raising Pygmy Puffs for the joke shop her brothers ran. He stood. "I'll tell her."

She followed him. "I'll join you in the lobby. I'd like a room here. I haven't been to the ocean in ages."

"Does Neville know?"

"I'll write him. He has detention again."

"What did the boy do this time," he asked as he pressed the down arrow for the elevator.

"He blew up half of the classroom."

"Doesn't that sort of thing happen in Potions?"

"It was in Herbology!" She waved her hand away but the irritated look didn't vanish until they walked out into the round lobby with its crystal clear glass windows and bright lights that replicated in the shiny marble floors.

At the reception desk stood Malfoy waving a key card at a flustered man and Hermione with her hand on his arm, explaining things to what seemed to be in a much calmer tone. Harry first wondered what they were doing, but an uninvited voice entered his mind, demanding to know if that was the way Hermione wanted to spend her life, calming Malfoy like a child.

Harry hadn't realized that he stopped in front of the closing elevator; people fussing at him to move. Ginny pushed him forward, and squeezed his hand for support. That was when Hermione and Malfoy looked over.

Hermione was first dismayed then angry. She stormed over and Harry wasn't hearing her, not a word of what she was saying. He was looking at Malfoy and his gloating smile.

"Harry!"

"He loves you, Hermione," Ginny said hurriedly, coming to his defense. "He's in love with you." She looked from him to her. "I'm here to make sure you know that." She walked away, leaving Harry to counter his demons, the biggest one at the reception desk.

Hermione shook her head, tears in her eyes. "You're... You're in love with me? Is that why you're here?"

"Hermione..." He wished Ginny had stayed, he couldn't form a coherent sentence. It would be different, if he could tell her the cause, but the thought of not being able to be with her - even as a friend, the thought was too painful to tell her the truth. In his head, he debated back and forth the right course of action, and he was too late. Her mouth was moving, she was talking.

"The truth, Harry."

"Malfoy isn't right for you." Could he not say anything else?

"Are you here to ruin my vacation?"

"Herm -"

SLAP!

Harry held his cheek. It was on fire, angry red. It burnt his fingertips where he touched. He didn't break eye contact with Hermione, and he saw that her eyes were less brown and more sandy, and that scared him more than her and he never thought that would be possible.

"How dare you," she hissed. "You were supposed to be my friend."

"I am your friend."

At that moment, there was a grunt, and Malfoy was bent at the waist below a curtain of flaming hair, Ginny's fist coming down to her side with the visage stolen from Malfoy. Harry felt like the world was exploding into chaos.

Hermione helped Malfoy up and together they left the hotel with one furious glare back at them.

Ginny went to stand beside Harry, her head higher than usual. "I know that was uncalled for, but it felt so good! I should've done it ages ago." When she inspected where his gaze was fixated on, she smiled and nudged him. "Tell her the truth. Trust me."

"I don't think I know what the truth is anymore, Gin."

"What do you mean?"

"I know I love her but I don't know who she loves. Me or Malfoy? Didn't she sleep with me because she thought Malfoy slept with that woman?"

He hated her sympathy, the way she frowned and pursed her lips. She stood in front of him, her hands on his arms. "I understand Malfoy."

"How can you understand that prat?!"

"I know you've wanted to start over - to make someone forget a mistake you've made. I do believe it was a mistake. The way he looks at her is the way Neville looks at me. Malfoy wouldn't intentionally hurt her but he did what everyone has wanted to do at some point, and it was stupid. Love makes us do stupid things, you know this."

He nodded. He did know.

"Give her choices back to her." She let him go.

"How dare he. How dare he! My best friend!" Hermione felt tears on her cheeks and she hated the way she was breaking down in front of Draco. He could barely keep up as she trekked her way across the sand. She couldn't get home fast enough, to put as much distance between her and Harry James Potter as she could. She had never in her whole life been so angry at him.

Draco's hand locked around her arm pulling her to face him. "Hermione, it's over."

All she kept seeing was Harry's glazed face, the worry she couldn't decipher, and the sting in her hand from where it connected with his cheek.

She had hit her best friend. She hit Harry. It was a terrible thing to do, she knew, but why was she hurting so badly over it? Why did she feel as though she made a grave error? Why did her head hurt so badly to where the world blurred its edges?

"Hermione?"

Draco's arms were at the length of hers, grasping her elbows, and she didn't know it but she was leaning on him. Her knees were buckling and her brain was being stabbed. Over and over again she felt sick and couldn't breathe.

"Hermione!"

She held onto his shirt but it wasn't his shirt, it was sand. It fell through the cracks of her fingers like in an hourglass. She screamed and screamed. Someone else was screaming too. A far off sort of angry tone that disappeared into the waves.

"POTTER! POTTER! Hermione..."

With Ginny at his side they watched Hermione crumple to the sand. In the endless space her scream somehow rung, rebounding back to him. It was more than an old nightmare, it was a memory. He ran but the beach was slow under his feet. He fell to his knees at her side, and gripped her hand which hung limp and cold in his.

"Hermione?" He didn't know if it was him that asked, he couldn't feel anything but her lifeless hand and all he could see was her pale face. It sounded like his voice though, but croaky with uncertainty.

"What have you done, Malfoy?"

Draco combed his fingers through his hair. Over and over. He would be bald by the time he was thirty, and that woman would be the cause of it. He hoped she would be the cause of it because the current situation wasn't looking good. He killed her.

Her eyes were closed, but that was okay because he could pretend that she was sleeping. It was only when he looked at her mouth that his heart sped up, but not for the reason it usually possessed. She wasn't talking. Hermione was always saying something, usually a funny joke she heard from the Weasley's or a story from work and almost always information from a book she read.

Draco clawed at the back of his neck, his eyes on the ocean. There wasn't an end to it. Maybe that's why Hermione loved it. Things ended. School, her friends, her life changing again and again from outside causes. Maybe she wanted one thing in her life to last as long as the ocean.

He wished he was as still as her.