Resistance
"Our hearts will love again."
Everlife

March 27th, 2002

It took Draco a few moments to realise that he'd fallen asleep, and a few more moments to notice his current position; how he was leaning against Hermione, his face buried in the crook of her neck, while her right arm curled around his body and her fingers combed through his hair. The former-Slytherin did not open his eyes—it was a lovely feeling, nestled against her side, and he was worried that once he alerted her he was awake it would end.

Hermione must have felt the change in his breathing or the way his body tensed, though, because she leaned very close to his ear and whispered, "Good morning, sleeping beauty."

Draco groaned and began to sit up, thinking he'd better just get it over with. The blonde could feel the small patch of pain in his side but nothing close to the agony he experienced the night before. Hermione, however, must have been thinking along his same lines as she began pulling him back against her. "Don't get up yet. Just rest. Close your eyes. Maybe take a nap."

He had to smile. "Say, Hermione, are you inviting me to sleep with you?" Draco said cheekily.

Her tone of voice told him she was blushing. "Twisting my words now, Draco?"

He settled back into the crook of her arm, pressing his cheek against her breastbone. "You're the one who gave me something to twist," the blonde reasoned, and Hermione chuckled.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him seriously, and he shrugged. "Better than before."

"But still hurt?"

"Just a little."

Hermione sighed. "Do you know how long it'll take for that wound to heal?"

"Parvati said if I take a vial every twelve hours, the constant pain should disappear in a week. It'll heal completely in about a fortnight." By wizard standards, when one could heal a broken bone with a quick charm, staunch blood loss with a few incantations, and close up most wounds with a flick of a wand, a fortnight was an eternity.

"You were an idiot, Draco," Hermione informed him. "Coming to see me when you should have been taking your potions."

"What can I say?" he said, a joking smile curling along his lips. "You're irresistible."

"I'm serious," the brunette replied. "You should have stayed with Parvati."

"I couldn't leave you alone."

"I'm a big girl."

"You slapped me across the face the moment I walked through the door. Imagine if I was, say, four hours later?"

She blushed again. "I'm sorry I did that."

"Don't be," Draco murmured, reaching for her hand resting on her lap and intertwining their fingers. "I shouldn't have lied to you."

"I don't know what came over me," Hermione continued, sliding her thumb back and forth across his hand absent-mindedly. "While you were gone I was so worried and frightened for you and confused and lost. I just sat on this couch the whole time, waiting for you to come home. But after I saw you, I was so angry at you for leaving me I—it just sort of came out."

"You don't need to apologise to me," Draco insisted. "I understand. I would have done the same thing. Well, I would have if you were a bloke, at least. I don't hit girls." The joking tone in his voice was back, and this time Hermione didn't plead seriousness.

"You promise me you'll never leave me like that again?" she asked.

"I promise," he replied dutifully.

"Good," she muttered, and kissed the top of his head.

' ' '

June 24th, 2001

He stood at the doorway, tragically beautiful in a way that can only be achieved by those who have the world resting on their shoulders. His dark hair fell dashingly over his green eyes, framed by glasses that had perched on his nose for more than two decades now. Good God, are we really that old? It was strange—on one hand, she could remember the first day the met like it happened just yesterday, but on the other, it seemed like they'd aged at least three times as fast since the start of this damned war.

He watched her carefully, as if she could not see him. But she could always see him. Sometimes, Hermione felt as if she could see him clearer than she could see herself. He wore his heart on his sleeve. She liked that of him, especially now that she lived in a world where deception was a regular part of life.

"Good morning, Hermione," Harry Potter said softly, finally walking up to meet her on the bed. "Planning to get up soon?"

The brunette didn't reply, instead simply burrowing further into the blankets. She curled up, hugging her knees to her chest, so tightly that she made it seem like she would completely fall apart if she let herself. It broke his heart, seeing her like this, in so much pain. Nearly three months had passed since Ron's death, and it seemed like things were only getting worse.

Harry pulled back the blankets and settled in beside Hermione, pulling her over a bit so they were connected by the hips and her back leaned against him. He could feel her breathe, could feel the work and labour put into each breath.

They lay like that for many minutes, neither saying a word, making no sound apart from the gentle thrum of their breaths.

Finally, Hermione spoke, voice wrought with an unimaginable pain. "It hurts. Dammit, Harry, why does it hurt so much? Why won't it all just go away? Why can't I make it go away?"

"I don't know. I don't know." He said it twice, and his voice was tight with anxiety and distress.

"I know you're trying," she told him. "I wish it would help."

"Me too."

"Why can't I just die like this? Lying here, in the arms of my best friend in the entire world? It would make such a better story."

"Hermione, stop thinking like that. Things will get better. I promise."

Hermione ignored him. "In books, everyone gets a happy ending. What if my happy ending is giving up?"

"Stop it, Hermione," Harry demanded, tightening his grip around her.

She shifted a bit so she faced the ceiling and goes on as if he never said anything at all. "I mean, that makes a better story. The heroine dies tragically after the death of her most-loved. Better than the heroine suffering nightmare after nightmare and horror after horror and then dying at an old age, completely broken."

"You're not going to be broken forever."

"Looks like it right now," Hermione said. "I can't even close my fucking eyes anymore. I can't blink for longer than two seconds or else I see their faces on the insides of my eyelids. And they're so damn beautiful, but they're dead." She breaks free of his grasp and sits up. "They're fucking dead Harry! They're fucking dead, and I can't do a bloody fucking thing about it!"

He sat up and grabbed her shoulders. "Listen to me. I promise you on my life, Hermione, you will get better."

"How?" she pleaded. "Tell me how, please, so I can end it!"

"I—I can't tell you. You have to find out on your own, or it won't work."

"THEN YOU MIGHT AS WELL KILL ME NOW!" Hermione shrieked. "KILL ME, HARRY!" she yelled, jumping off the bed before he could stop her. He was after her in a heartbeat though, following her as she staggered towards her vanity and punched the mirror with all the strength she had. Glass flew everywhere, and Harry shielded his face with his forearm, feeling the biting shards graze his skin.

When he lowered his arm, he saw that Hermione collapsed on the floor, clutching a jagged piece in her bloodied hand. He rushed forward and attempted to pry the shard from her, but the more he tried the more she tightened her grip, cutting her palm even more deeply.

"Go ahead," Hermione hissed, looking absolutely feral—a complete one-eighty from the exact picture of hopelessness she painted minutes earlier. "Struggle long enough, and maybe I'll lose enough blood."

Instantly Harry sprung away, holding his hands up.

He stared at her carefully, watching to see what her next move would be. She stayed frozen for many long, agonizing seconds, but eventually the former-Gryffindor dropped the shard and before Harry could leap forward to catch her, she fell sideways onto the floor, into the battlefield of fallen glass soldiers.

"Hermione!"

Her cry of pain sent a skewer through his heart, and he pulled her from the glass, desperately drew his wand from his pocket, shouting random incantations for fixing and healing as he rocked held her in his arms on the floor of the bedroom.

"Make it stop," Hermione moaned. "Jesus Christ, make it stop."

"I'm trying, I'm trying," Harry said again, tapping all her wounds with the tip of his wand, healing them instantly.

"I can still feel… the pain," she sighed. "All I want is to not feel it anymore. When you kill me Harry, please make sure it doesn't hurt."

"I'm not going to kill you, Hermione," Harry said sternly. "Get a grip on yourself."

"What is left of me to grip onto?" she whispered, and to that, Harry had no answer.

' ' '

March 28th, 2002

Draco woke up the the next morning to the feeling of soft fingertips being touched gently to his lips.

His waking must have scared her, for the fingers jumped bit. He cracked open one eye and peered out to see what was going on.

They were still on the couch, only this time they were sitting up—Draco was spread out along it and Hermione tucked herself between him and the back cushions, leaning on an elbow with her head in her palm so she could lean over him. She was currently holding one hand to her chest, still curled as it was when it brushed over his lips.

"Sorry," she said breathily. "That was presumptuous of me."

"I don't really mind when you're presumptuous," he said honestly, "If it means you're going to touch me."

Hermione blushed. "I'm trying to take small steps, you know?"

"That explains why you nearly snogged me senseless two nights ago," he teased.

She slapped him lightly across the chest and he winced. "Oops. That was instinctual. Sorry."

"So now it's instinctual for you to want to touch me?"

"It's instinctual for me to hit you whenever you're being a twat," she replied, a joking lilt to her voice.

"Aah. Though I don't really see the difference."

"Of course you don't."

' ' '

June 29th, 2001

Ginny?

Yes, love?

I'm sorry I haven't been home these past few days.

It's alright.

I'm sorry I'm never around anymore.

It's alright.

I'm sorry I don't kiss you as much as I used to.

It's alright.

I'm sorry you're stuck with Malfoy so much.

It's alright.

I'm sorry—

Go to sleep Harry, before you make me cry.

' ' '

April 7th, 2002

"Draco?"

"Mm?"

The pair was sitting at the kitchen counter, sharing a plate of scrambled eggs. Draco was paging through one of Hermione's old Potion's essays. The day before they had found a stack of assignments from when they were in school while attempting to clean her room again, and he had been whipping through them ever since.

"Where has Harry been?" she asked. Over the past few days Hermione had been thinking about her best friend quite a bit. She found herself wondering how Harry would take their tentative relationship, and what he was getting up to right at that moment. Draco had never said anything about the other man's whereabouts in all the months they'd spent together.

He looked up from the piece of parchment held in his hands. "He's been away for a while, on Order business, remember?"

"But no one knows where he is?"

"No," the blonde said, which was true. No one did know where Harry Potter was.

"Do you know when he's coming back?"

Draco did know when he was coming back, but that didn't mean he was going to tell Hermione. He hated keeping things from her, but he wasn't going to say anything when she seemed so happy lately.

"No," he lied. "I don't know when he's coming back. I'm sure Dumbledore or Weasley does, though."

"He's not doing anything stupid, is he, do you think?"

He shrugged, trying to look as nonchalant as possible, but he feared his shoulders were too stiff. "I highly doubt it. Potter's a big, smart boy who is very capable of taking care of himself."

Hermione didn't say anything reply—instead she just stared at her eggs, brow slightly furrowed with thoughtfulness.

Draco broke the silence. "This is really advanced stuff, Hermione," he told her, gesturing to the old essay. "Fantastic." He glanced at her sideways. "Snape never docked you for… irrelevant things, did he?"

She chuckled. "He couldn't really do anything but take house points from me. I think it probably would have killed him to give me anything less than an Exceeds Expectations, muggle-born or not." She said it very matter-of-factly, as if just knowing she was the best was enough, and no longer felt the need to rub it in anymore.

"I can see why. I mean, I would never have thought of this. Putting tarantula eyes in sleeping potions—that's just plain brilliant."

Hermione shrugged. "I suppose."

He flipped through to one of her History of Magic papers. "Eugh. I hated this class."

"Who didn't?"

"You're the only person I can remember who never once fell asleep in all six years of taking that class. And your notes… Merlin, they were always perfect. Used to make me go green with jealousy."

"My notes?" She cocked one eyebrow. "I didn't know you saw my notes."

"Are you kidding me?" he laughed. "You know, Zacharias Smith used to sneak them from your messenger bag during breakfast, make doubles of them, and then sell them for three sickles each before the exams. It nearly killed me to do it, but I used them to pass my herbology exam."

"You're joking," Hermione said, startled.

"Nope."

"That's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "I would have charged at least five!"

Draco exploded into laughter, clutching his side.

"Merlin, Draco, don't kill yourself," Hermione said, half concerned and half teasing.

The former-Slytherin turned thoughtful once he calmed down. "I remember being so tired of school during O.W.L.'s. All I wanted to do was get out of there." He leaned onto his palm and stared down at the sheet of parchment in his hands. "Now I would do anything to go back."

Hermione poked at the eggs on her plate. "I would want to go back no matter what we were doing right now. Hogwarts was like a second home for me."

"Hogwarts was as close to a home as I ever got."

' ' '

April 15th, 2002

The surprisingly bright light of Hermione's desk lamp stunned Draco into consciousness. He blinked rapidly and shielded his eyes, sitting up in bed. The first thing he did was glance at the alarm clock on Hermione's bedside table. Three fucking thirty in the morning, he thought, disgruntled.

"Love, what are you doing?" he moaned, looking towards her desk. She was hunched over the wooden surface, the sound of a fast-moving pen loud in the otherwise quiet room.

"I just realised something important," the brunette informed him.

"And what would that be?"

"So, any normal person walking past us on the street would probably say we're 'together', right?"

"I'm sensing air-quotes." Then Draco wanted to hit himself. Of course she doesn't want to think of it that way yet—Ron's not even been gone a year! Forming words of concern, he opened his mouth, but then immediately shut it when she continued speaking.

"Well, we don't really know each other, do we? Not enough to consider us serious." He stared at her, dumb-founded. This was what she was worried about? "You've 'fallen in love with me' in the span of less than a year, and all that time I was half-crazy with grief and living like a zombie or sleeping."

Draco got up from the bed and approached her from behind. "I know everything I need to know," the blonde said, bending down to kiss her tied-back curls. "For example, you're smart." His lips brushed over the back of her neck. "And you're incredibly kind." He pressed his lips to the skin between her shoulder blades. "And you make my day with your attempts at humour." He pecked the corner of her ear. "And you're absolutely beautiful," he finished, kissing her lovingly on the cheek.

She scoffed. "I may not be ugly, but I know for sure that I am not beautiful. Lying doesn't make me feel any better."

"I'm not lying."

"Whatever. But still, that's all part of the big picture," Hermione argued. "Once things go back to normal, you might decide that you hate all my strange habits or weird tastes or awfulness at some things. It's unfair to let you go on like this when you have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

"Oh really? And how do you suppose to fix this awful injustice?"

"I'm compiling a list of my faults or things I don't think you'll like. I'll present it to you when I'm done, and then you can decide if you still… want me."

He laughed. "Hermione, you're not going to be able to make me not love you anymore. That kind of thing is pretty much irreversible."

"You don't know that. And besides, it'll make me feel better. More honest."

Draco sighed. "Okay, I'll read your list. But does that lamp have any lower setting?"

"No."

He sighed again. "Guess I'm stuck with my head stuffed under a pillow for the next five hours."

"Guess so."

"Good night."

"Technically it's good morning."

"Just be a good sport and say goodnight to me, Hermione."

"Good night, Draco."

' ' '

"It's finished," Hermione proclaimed, brandishing the list from her pocket and nearly shoving it under Draco's nose.

He cracked open one eyelid, his vision blurry with sleep. He sat up and yawned, stretching his arms over his head. "What time is it?"

"Seven fifty two, exactly," she informed him, and he took the list while rubbing his eye with the heel of his other hand.

"Dear Merlin!" Draco said. "Your handwriting is small."

"I needed to fit it all on one piece of parchment."

He flipped it over. "There's a back, too?"

"I'm a very flawed person, Draco. You read, I'll make breakfast."

"Alright, alright."

He scanned through it. She even numbered it!

5. I forget to brush my hair sometimes.

13. I am too sentimental.

17. I will never get on a broom. Ever.

21. Occasionally I forget to wash behind my ears when I shower.

27. My hair looks atrocious in the morning.

33. I will steal your clothes and wear them often and probably never give them back until they no longer fit me.

39. I will make you read books and watch films and eat things you may find deplorable.

45. I will never take out the garbage. Or dry the dishes. Or dust. Or unclog the toilet or sink or bathtub.

49. I will insist on always being right.

56. I am liable to smack you upside the head when you're being a twat.

57. Or I might just threaten hex your testicles off.

58. I may also threaten your testicles if you interrupt me while I read a good book.

He grinned.

64. I will stay up late reading and refuse to turn down the light.

70. I am stubborn as a mule.

76. I will make you brush your teeth three times a day and will not let you have too many sweets.

He recalled that her parents were dentists.

83. I will often bore you with long soliloquys on my latest obsessions.

88. I hold a mean grudge.

94. I am very high-maintenance when ill.

95. I will make you dispose of all my tissues when I've got a cold instead of just putting the rubbish bin next to my bed like a normal person.

96. I will make you make me chicken-noddle soup.

101. I get awful cramps and PMS and may bite your head off during my special week.

112. I have a weird birthmark on my upper right thigh.

117. I sing loudly and obnoxiously in the shower.

122. I bite and tear up my lips a lot.

126. I will go out of my way to prove a point and that you're wrong and I'm right (which I'll always be).

134. I like to eat things straight out of their containers, germs be damned.

139. I refuse to take showers at night during the winter. I will go to bed smelling awful and wait until morning.

And then, the last one, which made him smile:

148. I will never ever ever let us get a house elf. I will eat a rat's tail, eyeball, and heart before we get a house elf.

"This is it?" Draco said, waving around the list as he walked into the kitchen. "Only one hundred and forty eight?"

"Those are the only ones I could think of at the moment. I'm sure there are at least a hundred more," Hermione, said, flipping the eggs on the stove.

"Hermione, all this did was endear you even more to me."

"That's because you haven't experienced them. What happens when I forget to mop up the water after I shower and you slip and break your neck on the counter?"

"What?"

"Number sixty-three."

Draco looked down at the parchment and chortled. There it was, 63. I am liable to forget to dry the floor after I take a shower. "Oh, yeah."

"It's not funny!" she insisted.

He advanced towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. "Flaws make up a person just as much as their strengths," the blonde murmured into her ear. "I love you as a whole person—not just because of the 'good' things about you."

Hermione turned to meet his gaze. "You're delusional."

"I'm right."

"You've fallen in love with the idea of me—the damsel in distress, the girl who needs saving from her terrible fate, who needs healing or fixing or whatever. You still don't know me well enough to actually love me, the person."

"Hermione Granger, I've known you for nearly half of my life. I have watched you grow up with my very own eyes. I suspect that all these feelings have been buried inside me the longest of times, since we were third-years or even before that, and it just took seeing you in a different light to trigger them.

"And besides—I thought we already had this conversation. I love you, and that's that."

"That conversation didn't really go anywhere, considering that it ended with us sucking each other's faces and you writhing in crippling pain," she pointed out.

"I think it went everywhere it needed to," the blonde said, and before she could reply he leaned down to kiss her hard on the lips, keeping his arms tight enough so that she wouldn't be able to escape but loose enough so that she could turn completely and wrap her arms around his neck in that desperate way that he loved so much.

Draco had always been confused as to why human beings spent so much time on pressing their lips together when there were so many other lovely places to brush one's mouth. Sure, kissing was a beautiful, wonderful, very special activity that he enjoyed very much, but he also felt that the rest of the body felt quite ignored by the time a good snog was over.

So he soon broke away, leaving Hermione gasping as he trailed his lips down her smooth jawline and down her throat. She fisted his t-shirt in her cold hands and her heavy breaths drove him crazy.

"You can't keep cutting me off by kissing me," she told him.

"Technically I didn't cut you off this time," he chuckled into her collarbone.

"You cut off our discussion."

"You needed cutting off. You think too much sometimes. Just feel for a few minutes, Hermione. Just for a few minutes, and then you can go back to questioning every little thing."

She sighed heavily but seemed to follow his direction, her eyelids fluttering closed.

He moved back up her throat, nipping and sucking at the pale skin there. She tasted like her soap—clean and fresh and slightly of citrus. It was magnificent.

And while Hermione as a body was beautiful and surprising, Hermione as a person was just as beautiful and surprising, as proved when she reached for the waist-band of his pyjama pants and yanked his hips to hers, bringing a raging fire to life somewhere along the bottom of Draco's stomach.

The blonde kissed her with a renewed fervour, backing her against the island counter. He grabbed her waist and hoisted her onto the counter. "Déjà vu?" he smiled into her skin.

"Only I do believe we were in opposite positions." Hermione placed a gentle hand against his chest, making him pause for a moment. "Wait. How's your manly battle-wound?"

"Never better," he answered quickly before tugging the hem of her t-shirt upward. The message was clear and Hermione raised her arms, allowing him to pull off the garment and toss it to the side.

Draco pressed his lips into her chest, breathing in her scent while his hands skimmed her sides.

"Do something," she whispered, tightening her grip around his neck.

"Like what?"

"Anything."

He grinned and loosened her grip just enough to yank his shirt off. Underneath his torso was bare, having forgone the bandages for the first time two days previously.

Her hands left his neck and trailed down the smooth skin of his chest, brushing the thin smattering of blonde hairs that could hardly be seen at all. Meanwhile, his lips found hers again and he kissed her as if only the taste of her would put out the fire raging in his stomach, when in reality it just put fuel to the flame.

Hermione wrapped her legs tentatively around Draco's hips, jerking them even closer. Her ankles crossed right over his tailbone, and now there was no room for her hands to reside on his chest anymore—instead, they wove through his hair, which was starting to dampen with sweat.

His fingers were gradually migrating downward, from her shoulders to her biceps, past her ribs and sides and finally resting on her hips. Consumed by his desperation, Draco reached for the waistband of her sweatpants, but before he could move another inch her hands clamped down hard around his wrists, a clear sign. But she was still kissing him, and dear Merlin she was beautiful, and he was too far gone to consider the sign and its causes and what would happen next because she was still kissing him, and—

BEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEP!

"Shit!" Draco shouted, recognising the sound of a smoke alarm. He sprung away from Hermione and whirled around to face the stove—blackened egg bits were smoking past the cabinets and up to the ceiling. "Shit!" he repeated, flicking the stove back to zero and then searching for his wand and finding it on the other side of the counter. "Augamenti! Augamenti!" the blonde yelled, jabbing the rod furiously at the ruined breakfast. Jets of water flew from the tip, dispersing the smoke and putting out any sparks from the stove, but at the same time sending up a hissing cloud of steam.

When the alarm finally quieted and the steam cleared, Hermione was splayed out across the countertop, laughing hysterically.

"Not funny!" Draco said. "We nearly burnt down the whole flat!"

She just laughed harder.

"Okay, so yeah, it was sort of funny," he admitted, chuckling a bit. Plus, it was just a relief to hear her laugh this hard. "I guess that'll teach us to mess around when we've got food cooking."

"No kidding," Hermione said through her guffaws.

A/N:

On Time! Woot! This story is making me so excited, because my current page count is 166! Even when I'm writing ORIGINAL stuff, I never get that high. Sorry for the lack of sex... again. This chapter is half fluff, half angst with the flashbacks. Hopefully that's okay?

So the song this week is from this really old Disney band, from back when they showed That's So Raven and played Aly and A.J. You know, the good old times. This is my favourite of their songs.

Drop a review if you can, and thanks to all the lovelies who favourited/reviewed/alerted from last chapter! You guys seriously make my day. ~Gen