Draco's eyes were the soft grey that made them sparkle but he shook his head at her words.
"I felt like that at first, Hermione. It's as if you can't believe it so your brain tells you there must be a way. But the fact is the best wizards in the country have been trying to find out about it for a year and they've found nothing. I have to try and accept it and so do you. I meant what I said, we can stop trying for a baby right now if you want. You can walk away and forget all about this and you will be out of danger."
Hermione looked across to him angrily. "No I can't! And I don't want to." She gave a little sniff. "Apart from the fact our baby could be the one who saves the wizarding world do you really think I can just call it a day and leave you to go off and...die...somewhere?" She struggled with the last few words. Draco eyes didn't leave her face for a second.
"It wouldn't be like that."
"I won't be like that because it isn't going to happen. We're in this together and we're going to stay in this together!" Hermione nodded her head. "I think you're forgetting what school house I was in. The best way to solve this is to face it full on." Draco didn't speak and his eyes made a journey around her face. Then he shook his head and Hermione responded immediately. "Don't shake your head at me, Draco Malfoy," she said, as if she was reprimanding a naughty child. "Did you ever believe that Harry would defeat Voldemort without getting himself killed? Did you believe that I'd become a famous author? Did you believe that you'd be married to me and trying to have a baby?" She shook her head at him. "No! Of course we didn't believe them because they seemed impossible. But nothing is impossible." She emphasized the word nothing and then gave a very small, weak smile. "Did you believe that Neville Longbottom would become the handsome, Herbology teacher at Hogwarts!"
Draco returned her smile. "No, that one I definitely didn't believe. Him just raising his wand in the same room as me terrified me." He gave a little chuckle. "Is he handsome now then?"
Hermone shrugged. "Yes, he is. I think the Year Seven students like him. Or they did while he was still single."
"But how can we solve something that experts can't?"
"Because sometimes they look at things the wrong way round," she answered.
"I'm not following you."
"Well they're looking for an answer but we may already have the answer we just don't know we have."
Draco rolled his eyes. "You're talking in riddles."
"The times that Harry, Ron and I were searching for a solution to a problem and we would just keep thinking and looking until we started to go crazy. And then, something would come along that was simple – a phrase or a clue – and that would be the answer. We'd known it all along but we didn't realize it was that that could solve our problem." She stood up and moved to sit next to him. "You might have heard them say something at the hospital or Harry could have seen or heard something at the actual fight," she gave him examples, waving her hands around, "or I could have seen something while I was researching one of my books. Do you see what I mean?"
They were close now and Draco was still staring at her. It was as if he hadn't seen her before and he wanted to record every detail of her face. And those eyes of his were still a sparkling, misty grey and Hermione found herself being pulled into them. She saw him blink a few times and take a breath and that was when she knew she'd finally got through to him. He finally understood what she meant and that just maybe there was still a hope that a cure could be found. He looked down at his hands again and lowered his head.
"Merlin, Granger! You're so bloody annoyingly positive," he said but his voice lacked its usual cutting edge. "But I can't let myself believe it...it's easier if I don't believe..." he mumbled this, obviously embarrassed and Hermione felt a rush of affection for him. Of course it was easier if he didn't believe because if you believed that there was still hope then you could be heading for a huge fall. Without thinking it through, she moved closer.
"This is one time that having a quick, logical mind isn't a bonus," she said. She pointed at his head with her finger. "You need to switch it off for a while and instead of thinking with your brain start thinking with this..." she put her hand on his chest over his heart and watched as his eyes widened at her gesture. She left her one hand on him and moved the other to point at her own head. "My logical, quick mind agrees that there isn't much hope because logically every avenue has been researched." She pressed her hand that was on him harder against his body. "But what I can see if I look at it the right way is us still here in a year's time and that's the only version of the future I'm willing to accept." She bit her lip because her own words were making her feel emotional and now Draco's gaze was intense, his whole concentration on her, his chest rising and falling rapidly under her hand. And then the misty, grey deepened and she felt Draco's hand cover her own on his chest.
"Annoying, definitely annoying..." His words should have been insulting but his voice was a whisper and his eyes were deep pools of grey and somehow he made the insulting words sound like a compliment. Hermione could hardly breathe, let alone speak because the way he was looking at her was making her tingle. They way they were sitting was intimate, she could feel his body rising and falling beneath her hand, his hand over her own. She felt him squeeze it and her stomach did a little flip. He was gorgeous all the time but when he was obnoxious and rude she could ignore it but this was different. He was vulnerable, he was opening up to her and now he was looking at her in a way that made her melt.
Draco leant closer and she couldn't see his face any longer because he was placing his head against the side of hers, their hands still joined on his chest and then his other arm went around her waist, pulling her against him. She heard him sigh but it wasn't a sigh of anxiety or pain, it was a sigh of contentment and it was enough for Hermione to lose her last little bit of reservation and she found herself willingly leaning into him, her spare arm sliding up his arm to his shoulder.
"Hermione..." Draco whispered her name, his voice sounding like honey and Hermione wondered how someone just saying her name could make her feel like this. Someone she was supposed to hate, someone she definitely still disliked sometimes. But that wasn't what she was feeling right now. Right now she was feeling another emotion entirely. Draco spoke again, his lips close to her ear. "Hermione Granger, I don't know how you've done it but somehow you've bloody well got me hoping again..."
"It's Malfoy."
"What?" Draco pulled back a little to look at her again.
"My name's Malfoy..." Hermione paused for just a second then gave a little shrug. "Just on paper of course, it doesn't mean anything." She quoted his own words back to him and they both knew that they sounded wrong now. Draco managed to look slightly ashamed.
"Yeh, maybe I was wrong about that..."
And this time Hermione really smiled at him.
Well I think we were all in need of a nice big dose of Dramione and there it is! Hope you like it and I know it was a pretty big and quick jump from how they've been with each other up until now but Draco has just opened up to Hermione and probably more than he intented to. Hope it was believable. x
