Hermione:
They all sat in a lopsided circle. It had surprised her at first that Ginny was there, but there was no tension between her and Harry. They were all ok. She fit in with ease, and she liked that. She had splurged on red wine for all of them, and they had tall glasses with blood colored liquid sloshing around in their hands.
Ginny was showing off a tattoo on her wrist and she couldn't focus on it because there was a slight gap between them that was meant for Ron, who wasn't here. She had fucked him over, and the more she sipped the more she realized it.
"Why didn't we invite Ron?" she interrupted and they all looked at her.
"Hermione…" Harry started and Ginny shook her head.
"What?" she asked. "You can tell me."
"We did, love. He didn't want to come."
Her veins filled with ice. She set down her glass and stood up.
"I'm going to get some air." She said.
London was cooling down from an unusually hot summer. She was sad she had missed it, but relished the rush over her skin anyways. She pulled a pack out of her jacket pocket and tugged a cigarette from inside.
"Want help with that?" came a voice.
Two strong hands surrounded her, blocking the wind as she lit and dragged.
"Since when do you smoke?" she asked as she exhaled. Ginny shrugged and lit one of her own.
"So…"
Hermione didn't know what to say and inhaled again, shaking her curls through the haze of smoke.
"You sorting things out over there?"
"I suppose…" she hissed through an exhalation.
"Where are you even staying?"
"In a house."
Ginny snorted, crushing out her tube too early and letting it fall from the apartment ledge.
"We all have issues, you know. Harry broke up with me but at least he didn't run off without a word."
"I know he's your brother, but you don't understand."
"You're right. I don't. I mean, you're my mate and everything but he's my brother. And all I see is him hurting, and you not."
"I'm hurting too."
"Then why don't you come back and let us help?"
She burned out her own, taking one last pull first. She tossed the remains over the edge as well and then gazed down at the streets.
"I guess I just felt…unhappy."
"But well enough to fuck him one last time?"
"Yes." She gasped, shocked at Hermione's honesty. "I'm sorry that it had to be this way. It's wrong. Ron didn't deserve this. But I didn't deserve this either."
A knock on panel caused them to look up. Harry was motioning for them to come back in. She looked at Ginny and smiled sadly. Things had become so fucked up, so quickly.
-X-
"Want to stay the night?" Ginny held a bundle of blankets in her arms, headed towards the couch. "Friends don't let friends apparate drunk."
Hermione looked fondly at her tall, lithe friend and realized how little she appreciated her. She had been so selfish lately, meddling in everyone's lives and messing things up for all of them. She shouldn't stay. She should leave. Leave and not come back.
Draco:
He was alone tonight, and he found that he didn't mind. He had grown used to her leaving little notes saying that she was visiting friends in London every once in a while. She had friends to visit. He didn't. That was the way it was.
Instead of letting himself sit and wallow, he got up and went to the market, picking up vegetables and spices, preparing to cook a meal for himself.
But when he got back home, the bags sat at the table and he found that it wasn't worth it unless she was here, helping him and enjoying the meal as well.
He put the groceries away and then took out jam and toast and made himself a small snack. And then he waited.
The thing about Hermione was that she was really good at filling the quiet spaces. He had never been good at small talk but she could make a whole night full of small talk if willed. Others were drawn to her because she was a tragedy and people ate that up. Secretly, he liked that in the end she was his and his alone.
But lately it hadn't felt like that. Dating had been an adventure and now it consisted of domesticated indifferences.
A door opened and she walked in, swaying slightly but smiling.
"Hey babe." She said and motioned for him to walk closer.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her deeply. Her lips tasted like cherries and cheap affection.
"Did you miss me?" she whispered.
"All the time."
Hermione:
"The coffee is cold."
"I didn't know you wanted some so early. Otherwise I would have made you some right before you woke up. "
"Stop shouting. My head hurts."
He looked at her with disinterest. She knew that he was aware of her hangover, but continued to clang things down with venom.
"Sorry." He said.
She held her cup out to him and he looked down, confused.
"Please?" she begged and let her head fall down on the table. "Please."
"What do you want me to do, Hermione?"
"My wand is in the bedroom, otherwise I'd do it myself. Can you just..."
And then it clicked in her mind and she felt embarrassed. For him not having magic and for herself, for calling attention to it and creating the silence that now hung between them.
"I'll just…drink it cold."
-X-
She was walking around in silence. It was nice, sometimes, to have the quiet all to herself. When she was younger she used to imagine quiet as a game, and if she could win it then eventually people would want her to speak and be her friend. It never worked out that way. Eventually she had found magic and Hogwarts but until then, she had a lot of problems.
She was at National Park again, and there was a tree, large and looming in the distance. She couldn't remember the last time she had climbed a tree. The last time she had done anything that reminded her of her family, actually. She didn't realize she had started walking towards the tree until she was halfway there. Then the tree was in front of her and…she grabbed onto it.
She lifted herself up with ease, climbing and tugging on the branches until she was sitting up at the top. And she could see everything. The fields stretched out below her and the sky above. She was at peace. And then she fell.
Draco:
She came in that night broken, but he had almost become used to it at this point.
"What the hell happened to your arm!" he yelled anyway and she pulled her wand from her back pocket.
"Don't worry." She whispered and muttered an incantation below her breath. Her arm extended back into a proper form.
"Why did you have to wait until you were home to do that?"
"Because I wanted…to see if you could fix it."
"Hermione, you bloody idiot! I can't!"
She shrugged and moved into his arms. He let himself hold her, accepting that this was who she was and wondered when it would get better.
-X-
Hermione had said she was gone for the day. That was all right with him. He wanted this quiet. He needed to make a decision and he couldn't have her around while he thought about it.
His first girlfriend was not, in fact, Pansy like everyone thought. He had only run to her when he was horny and desperate. He regretted few things in life, but Pansy was definitely one of them.
But his first girlfriend was a girl in Ravenclaw, who was brilliant and beautiful. Her name was Sarah and her family came from old money and pure blood. They were sixteen, but when they were together they felt much older. When they had been dating for almost a year, he told her he loved her. And she had told him she didn't feel the same. She had stood up from the green grass they sat on and told him that love wasn't meant to be complicated, but if she let herself love him things would soon be that way. And then she had moved schools and he hadn't seen her again.
He supposed that the first month without her was the worst, but since no one had known they were dating in the first place he couldn't entreat for sympathy. He wouldn't want sympathy regardless.
He had become cold to the idea of love. Sarah was right-it only caused complications. He held true to this belief…until this past March. Suddenly an awkward looking girl with curves and a furry cat had streaked into his life and broken all of his rules. More than that, she was complicated, and made him feel insane.
He knew he had to break up with her but wasn't sure how to do so. Where would she go? Was it fair to kick her out when she had no money or place to turn to? She could live at Potter's. Or Weasel's. But would he like the lack of her presence in his home? They had made it so comforting together.
All of a sudden he was thirsty and walked into the kitchen. Hermione had bought them a BRITA, which gave them perfectly clear water. He took it out and poured himself a glass. The liquid felt welcome on his throat, which had been so dusty with thoughts.
He took the glass back to the room where he had been sitting, and something crunched beneath his foot. He bent down and picked up a shard of glass. It was from a plate she had smashed in a previous fight.
And suddenly he was so tired of the fighting. At Hogwarts the fighting had been a sport; they had battled and competed. But they were young back then. And now it wasn't just a game anymore. It was his life. He couldn't keep acting like he was a kid in school when he was an adult now. He had to do what was right. He had to break things off. For good. He was certain.
-X-
He woke up and she wasn't in bed with him. He was confused for a minute and then remembered she had plans.
He got out and walked to the bathroom. The hallway light was on, and this confused him. Hadn't he turned it off? The bathroom light was also on, leaking under the bottom crack of the door.
"Hermione?" There was no answer so he turned the knob and tried to push in. The door was locked. He knocked again, thinking she might have not heard him. "Hermione?" he called again but nobody seemed to be there.
He tried to open the door but it wasn't budging. It was as if someone had intentionally stuck it.
His heart started to race and he slammed on the door as hard as he could. It pushed in and he almost tripped over…
And there she lay; on the linoleum squares his father had so carefully chosen when building the house. The ones he had asked his mother for advice over. They had looked through hundreds of different designs before settling with plain white ones. Blood pooled around her from slashes on her arms. He couldn't put together what was happening until he saw her eyes, half open and half closed.
He knew then he wouldn't have broken up with her. He would have stayed with her because she stayed with him. They stayed together. They were constants in a world that didn't make sense to either of them anymore.
"Hermione!" He knelt on the ground, knelt in her blood, knelt in something that shouldn't be there, something that didn't fit and tried to feel for a pulse. "Hermione, no! No no no no…no." he was screaming and tears were mixing in with her blood, which had moved all over his favorite sweater-the blue one she borrowed so frequently.
"Help! Somebody! Somebody help!" His voice rang around the otherwise empty room, and he felt so helpless. There was nobody but him there and he didn't know what to do. He couldn't fix her. This time, maybe she was gone for good.
Hermione:
She was tired. She was aware of being in a bed and that she was wearing something thin and short, but nothing else.
-X-
She couldn't see her arms, only sun coming in through a window. She was dazed, unsure of where she was.
Hermione…are you awake?
She shook her head, feeling the words bang around in her mind. She was tired. She needed to go to sleep.
Draco:
He was out of smokes. He sat on a park bench outside the hospital, but he couldn't even smoke like he had intended.
"Hey…can I sit here?"
It was the female redhead. The gangly and awkward one. And she wanted to sit next to him.
"No."
She sat anyway and pulled out a pack of Camels. She handed him one and lit it with her wand, looking around for Muggles before she did.
"So she's been living with you, then?"
It came out as a statement first, question second. She had maybe known for a long time, but wanted to be sure.
"Yes."
"So then you know, that person in there isn't Hermione. Not really."
"Yes." He flicked the end with his finger and held the ashes in his palm.
"This one time, when I was a first year and she was a second year, we were playing hide and seek at the Burrow-childish, really; we were too old for those sorts of games, but we played anyway. Well, Hermione managed to hide from me for a long time, and I couldn't find her no matter what I did. And so I asked Harry to help me and we found her…hiding underneath the kitchen sink, reading. And when we found her she looked at us with those eyes…you know what I'm talking about? And we never played that game again. I was afraid I would become lost like she had. It didn't make much sense really. She wasn't really gone, but all the same...I didn't tell her that though. I just told her the game was boring." She inhaled and exhaled, letting there be silence before continuing. "Anyways, I think she never stopped playing. She wasn't very good at being magical one second and a Muggle the next. It confused her. She hid a lot of herself on both sides. But these problems…the ones that put her in there…they didn't start until the war. She's going to need our help fixing herself, Draco. She's going to need you."
"No."
He stood up and threw his still burning remains in the street and then turned to her.
"Did you know that she apparated us here? I didn't do it. She waited until I was in the bathroom because she knew I would find her. She wanted me to see her like that. So no. I'm done. I'm absolutely done."
He started walking. To where, he wasn't certain.