A/N: Hey, here's a quick update! I'm getting a big tattoo on my arm tomorrow so it'll probably ache for a few days and inhibit my typing ability. Hopefully not, or I just might die. Anyway, thanks for everyone's continued support for this story, your kind reviews mean so much to me! :)
After Theo left, Draco had stared at the swaying swing, his mind pulling him back several days, days which felt like weeks, and showing him the moment he'd knelt there, with his head in Hermione's lap, her hands brushing his hair and stroking his jaw.
He'd thought about the way the sun made a halo of gold around her toffee-coloured hair, and the way he'd wanted to press his lips to each and every one of the freckles which dusted across her nose.
He'd thought about how her skin felt pressed against his, soft and firm and beautiful.
He'd thought about the noises she'd made next to his ear, moans and quiet sighs of pleasure.
Most of all, Draco'd thought about the way her lips moved when she'd told him she loved him, what her words had done to the unyielding construct around his heart — broken his walls, freed him.
And Draco knew then, that he'd never be able to give her up.
"Whatever stick Malfoy's had up his arse seems to have gone awol," Ron paused, evidently waiting for a response, but Hermione just bit her lip and steadfastly avoided looking toward the back of the room. "Are you two still — er — y'know…"
"That's none of your business!" Hermione hissed at him, scribbling into her visual diary, drawing something which looked like a dying stick figure. She'd never been very artistically gifted.
Ron's expression turned into one of defeat, and with a sulky turn of his head he began an enthusiastic discussion about soccer with Seamus.
"Are you okay?" Harry whispered from Hermione's other side.
She sighed, "I'll tell you later."
Harry nodded, not pressuring her, and continued his own picture, which Hermione gazed at with jealousy. Since their first art class together she'd had to grudgingly come to terms with the fact that her friend was better at a subject than her, and was indeed, rather good at drawing.
Hermione looked away and grumbled just as Mrs Trelawney's warbling voice rang out, "Now class! As you've all had time with the warm up sketches, I'd like to now discuss the final project for the semester. It is a group task, and I've taken the liberty of arranging you into your groups by your first names so as to avoid any unnecessary — ah — conflict," Hermione exchanged hopeful glances with Harry while their teacher coughed rather violently, banged her chest, and continued, "Group 1 will be, Anthony Goldstein, Bradley Hooper, Brandt Newman, and Dean Thomas."
There was a series of dissatisfied mumbles amongst the students as they realised they'd be separated from their friends.
"Group 2 shall be Draco Malfoy," Hermione's heart contracted a little at the name, "Gregory Goyle, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger."
Hermione's stomach fluttered and her chest pulsed, swallowing nervously as Harry leant against her shoulder and whispered, "At least we're together. Sorry about, er, you-know-who."
Hermione exhaled, moving her pencil in random patterns over the page, if only to have something to do to distract her. She didn't hear the teacher call out the rest of the groups, but she did see Ron fist pump the air and grin widely, saying, "Yes! Thank god no one in this class has a name starting with 'Q!'"
Hermione just shook her head, but couldn't help but look over at Pansy, who was watching Ron with a shy smirk and a pretty blush on her cheeks.
"Gross," Hermione muttered, wishing there'd been students in the class with names beginning with 'E' or 'F,' so she wouldn't have to be with Draco. Then again, it wasn't like she was disappointed, she was just worried she'd be too anxious around him to concentrate, and thus the reason their group might fail.
"Alright now, children, everyone hush! I'd like you all to go and sit with your groups, and begin brainstorming ideas for the project. Please remember you only have several weeks to complete this, and therefore teamwork is essential. Any questions, I'll be in the back room making a pot of tea."
Ron almost tripped in his haste to get up and join Pansy, and clenching her teeth, Hermione shouldered her bag and gave Harry a 'come-on-lets-get-this-over-with' look. Harry trudged along behind her, and Hermione, not understanding her friend's apparent hesitance in heading over to the back of the room, and being in the bad mood she was, barked at him to hurry up.
Hermione briefly noted Theo's group surrounding the other end of the table, and once again she refused to meet his smiling eyes, instead glaring at the spot where Draco and Goyle sat, Goyle with his arms crossed over his large torso, and Draco with his chin his hand, doodling something in his notebook.
Hermione slumped down in the seat opposite them, and Harry gingerly sat on the bench next to her, frowning at the table.
Hermione was about to skip the greetings and just dive straight into it, but before she could even open her mouth Draco said calmly, "well, good thing we have Potter's art skills and Hermione's brains on our team. Right, Goyle?" He elbowed his friend, who'd been a second away from falling asleep and now jerked upright, giving a noncommittal grunt of agreement.
Harry had stiffened next to Hermione, and he eyed Draco skeptically, not saying anything.
Hermione tried to pretend she wasn't blushing, and said, "Right. So, does anyone have any ideas?"
Goyle blinked stupidly, "Uh, we could do one of 'em, what you call its? A Muriel or some shit."
"Mural," Draco replied instantly, stealing the correction which had been about to slip from Hermione's tongue. Goyle grunted again, and Draco nodded indifferently and wrote the idea down. Hermione took up Harry's method of distraction and stared at a mark on the table, so as not to ogle the delicately slanting script of Draco's hand writing. "A mural of what?"
Goyle shrugged and began to tear up strips of paper, roll them into tiny balls, and then throw them at Vincent Crabbe's head, narrowly missing Theo's cheek.
"I think there's far more interesting things we could do than a painting on a wall," Hermione said, attempting to speak as clearly as possible. Draco looked up from his page, and their eyes met.
Hermione swallowed, quickly averting her gaze.
Draco turned to Harry, "You're the artist, Potter, got anything good?"
Harry blanched, "What — I — er — Well… we could do some kind of mosaic, like a mosaic of eyes?"
Draco raised an eyebrow, "Eyes?"
"Everyone in the year's eyes. It'd be cool — like some yearbook identity crap, but just the eyes. I reckon eyes can tell you a lot about a person."
Draco stared at Harry, and Hermione got the chance to study his eyes. Grey, penetrating, never-ending emotion. She both agreed and disagreed with her friend's statement, because while Draco's eyes told her she loved him, they'd never confirmed if he loved her.
"Not bad, Potter," Draco said eventually, jotting it down. Hermione felt oddly proud of her friend, and guilty for snapping at him earlier.
"That's a great idea, Harry," Hermione told him. He looked a little awkward, but managed to beam at her.
Draco scrunched his brow, then put his pen down, "Although, I hate to break it to you, but not all of us are as talented as you are." He cast a meaningful look at Goyle, who chuckled as Crabbe finally stood up seething, paper balls falling from his shirt collar.
"We could each be assigned to a different task," Hermione said keenly, "Gregory can go around with a camera and photograph everybody's eyes, if they consent to it, obviously — because that's quite an easy job — er — no offence. Harry can then copy the photos and draw them — only if you don't mind, Harry, but you really are good at drawing," Harry flushed, looking sheepish, "and then Draco and — and I could fill them in with colour."
Hermione felt something inside her wither, unsure if what she'd gotten herself into had been a good idea.
"That sounds brilliant," Draco said simply, and when Hermione looked at him he was smiling, smiling at her, his eyes creased at the corners, warm and friendly and — Hermione sucked in a breath, her face flaming —
— and full of something an awful lot like love.
Draco dropped his bag after closing the front door behind him, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt and loosening his tie — which he wasn't used to wearing properly, and thought he'd been strangled by it throughout the day.
He headed into the kitchen, fully intending to make himself something tasty and filling, yet knowing he'll have to settle for peanut butter on toast, when his hand paused on its way to the fridge. Food. Draco'd almost forgotten about the kittens down the street which needed food, about the kittens which meant so much to Hermione.
He spun around, ransacked the cupboard, and ended up finding several cans of preserved tuna and some crackers, which he figured would have to do, until he could get a chance to go down to the store and buy some cat food.
Draco was just about to shove the food into his bag for tomorrow, when his father walked into the kitchen, swiping at the cuffs of his shirt and wearing an expression of surprise upon seeing his son.
"Ah, Draco — I'm just leaving, to get er — Teddy, if you remember?"
Draco nodded shortly, stuffing the tuna cans behind his back, looking guiltily awkward, "Right."
Lucius stood there for a few seconds, eyeing his son strangely, yet not suspiciously, before exhaling loudly and picking up his keys. "I'll see you in a few hours."
Draco didn't reply, he didn't have anything to say, so he simply nodded, hid the food in his bag, and watched his father retreat into the hallway.
The doorknob rattled, and Draco listened, listened for the signs of departure, and for a moment all he could see was a flash of long blonde hair leaving him — his mother walking out of the door, the doorknob rattling in just the same way it did now. The day she'd left him, and never came back. And something in Draco's chest threatened to fall apart, so before he knew what he was doing he was rounding the corner, his voice urgent and gravelly as he said, "Wait!"
Lucius froze, the bright afternoon light streaming in through the open door, and when he looked over his shoulder, his pale eyes were wide with shock and confusion, because maybe he thought he'd imagined it, imagined his son's voice calling out to him. But that's what Draco was, right? His son. The son who'd lost one parent, and couldn't bare the idea of losing another.
"I'll — I'll come with you," Draco said, low but decisive, and he wiped the awkwardness of the situation onto his trousers with sweaty palms.
Lucius's brow arched and his eyes flickered, as if seeing something for the first time, something which you had to look at twice to confirm it was real. He nodded once, and then again, because the first one seemed too jerky, and with that Draco was following his father out of the house, locking the door behind him.
Draco had never been in his father's car before. The interior was clean, but the air was musty, as though the windows were never opened, and when Draco tried to wind his down it was stiff and unused. None of the radio stations had been tuned either, Draco realised after fiddling with it for five minutes. Lucius must enjoy driving in claustrophobic silence.
Draco looked at his father from the corner of his eyes, but the man's gaze was trained ahead of him, his jaw harsh and angular, and his knuckles were taught around the steering wheel.
Draco sighed, thinking of some way he could nonchalantly attempt to break the tension, but in the next second a tinted SUV cut them off without even indicating, swerving into their lane and ripping a curse from Lucius' thin lips, "Fucking bastard! Could have killed somebody!" He violently slammed the horn.
Draco stared.
He blinked, but that wasn't good enough so he stared some more.
Lucius Malfoy was a victim of road rage, then. Draco wasn't surprised, and something akin to humour began to twist the corner of his mouth. "Well," he breathed, "That was something."
Lucius frowned and glared ahead of him, and if Draco knew the man better he would have thought he was embarrassed. "I don't normally respond so aggressively."
"Sure," Draco snorted, "Let me guess, you don't normally drive with the windows down or the radio on, either?"
His father's face turned stony, his cheeks hollowed and his eye twitched. Draco's face fell, fearing he'd pushed the wrong button, and he turned his head to gaze at the passing trucks, the sound of their horns blearing after them as they manoeuvred the busy highway.
Draco had accepted the fact that the rest of the journey would be undergone in silence, and his skin prickled with discomfort, but then Lucius said, "Your mother never started the engine before the radio was turned on, and the windows were down. Even in the winter, when the air was so freezing one could hardly open their eyes. She only ever gave in when it was raining, and her son was getting sodden in the backseat."
Draco suddenly found it hard to breathe, and he willed the sharp shock he felt to stay dormant, to not do anything to encourage the stinging in his eyes.
He still hadn't replied when they veered onto the turnoff to the airport, and when the car was finally parked his head throbbed at his temples. Draco reached for the door handle, needing to get out, needing air, needing to not think about what his father had told him, but before he could he felt a hand on his elbow, and Lucius said quietly, "I don't normally respond so aggressively because I don't have my son's safety to be concerned for."
The stinging increased tenfold, and shrugging away from his father's touch, Draco climbed out of the car. He tried as hard as he could to slam the door, but somehow it didn't work.