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Draco didn't think he deserved to be here.
With the cold, ocean wind whipping against his face, he clasped his hands tighter together. His eyes stayed trained on the ground, his boots crushing into the wet mud. The screaming in his mind was so loud, he almost couldn't hear Lupin give Finnigan's eulogy.
Almost.
The core Order was gathered at the seaside for the funeral. They buried Seamus down near Shell Cottage, Bill and Fleur's place. The late Gryffindor had spent the last few weeks here before the battle of Malfoy Manor. And besides, with the war waging and the alert level heightening, no one felt safe brining the body back to Ireland.
Draco stared at the ground with an intensity that could rival the ocean wind. He understood that he should be here, to pay his respect for the man, for his last act which had cost him his life, but his presence felt wrong, nonetheless.
It had been five days since they had rescued Hermione from Malfoy Manor. Five days that had passed in the blink of an eye. He had felt disjointed, stuck in a rupture between presence and absence. That first morning afterwards, waking up in bed with Hermione, he should've felt joy. Felt happiness.
But it was empty. Empty because of the blank stare on her face as she left the room before avoiding him like the plague.
He didn't want to push her. He understood that what had happened to Seamus had thrown her. She was grieving, healing…
Lupin had found him later that day and explained that no one in authority at the Order felt he was much of a threat anymore, and he was free to wander Grimmauld Place as he once had.
He didn't seek her out. He didn't know what to say.
So for five days, he sat around, nodded occasionally when Blaise arrived to offer a piece of news. Eventually, his childhood mate had arrived at the room and muttered about the funeral. Before he knew it, he was side-apparating along with Blaise to pay respects to a man he hadn't respected, had actively disliked in fact.
Except for at the end. Except for when it really mattered.
They all stood in a semi-circle around a small tombstone. Seamus Finnigan 1980-1999. Loyal Friend. Four words and two numbers left to summarize the nineteen years that this man had spent on earth.
Hermione was here. Of course, she was. It was the first time Draco had really seen her since that morning, and it was one of the reasons he was staring so ardently at the ground. She had been clutching at Potter's arm, head on his shoulder, tears streaming down her pale face when Blaise and Draco had arrived.
He hadn't been able to look up since.
Lupin's voice was starting to break through the walls Draco had built in his mind. He hadn't really used Occlumency since arriving at Grimmauld Place, but now he needed it. Otherwise, how could anyone expect him to get through this moment.
He couldn't expect it of himself.
Words floated through the air. Friend. Courage. Loyal. Snapshots of a life cut too short. What did this even mean? To eulogize: to remember. To summarize. To praise.
A lifetime in five minutes. How could they ever do him justice? Or even try, really.
"Thank you for all that you did, for all that you were. We will remember your sacrifice, and we will honour your life by winning this fight you laid your life down for."
Draco closed his eyes again. A soldier's salute. This fight he had laid down his life for? What about every other part of Finnigan's life that hadn't been about this war? How would they honour that?
And besides, Finnigan hadn't laid down his life for this war. Not really.
He had laid it down for Hermione.
Lupin let out a final, shuddering breath, and bowed his head for a moment, before stepping back into the circle. After a few moments of deafening silence, filled only by the screeching of the wind through the tall grass, the Order's Leader spoke again.
"Hermione… would you like to say anything?"
Draco's eyes flashed to Hermione's face without a moment's hesitation. He watched as she paled more, her tears pausing for a moment, as if she was shocked at Lupin's request.
Had she not thought Lupin would ask her to speak? The brightest witch of their age… of all the Order members present, she had been closest to the late Gryffindor, in every sense of the term.
And besides, Finnigan's unspoken sacrifice was for her. They all knew that – the cloud hanging over every mention of Finnigan over the past few days. What he had done – what he had given up for her.
Draco watched Potter lean down and whisper something in Hermione's ear, before moving his arm to the small of her back and pushing her forward slightly. Draco watched her hiccup quietly, as she desperately tried to calm her heartbeat.
He could feel it beating as his own.
"Seamus," Hermione whispered, her voice nearly drowned out by the wind. Draco felt like he was drowning himself. Finnigan's name on her lips sounded like a confession.
"I'm… I'm sorry," she continued, her words so quiet that only a ghost could access them. Which Draco guessed was the point.
"I'm sorry about everything," she said, gaining a bit of volume as her tears finally slowed. "I'm sorry about what happened. I'm sorry about what I did. I'm sorry for what I couldn't do. I'm sorry I used you, when I knew that I couldn't give you what you wanted. In another life… maybe there… but I couldn't lie to you. I'm sorry for my honesty. I'm sorry I hurt you."
Draco felt each syllable like a knife. The unspoken reason behind each word. He could feel the eyes of various Order members drift to him as she spoke, but he couldn't look away from her, her green eyes trained at the gravestone at her feet.
"I'm so sorry, Seamus," she said, her voice louder now, as if she didn't give a damn that they were all there. Did she even notice anymore? "I'm sorry I couldn't be what you needed. I'm sorry I couldn't patch you back up, as you had done for me for so long… longer than you needed to. Longer than I should have let you."
"I'm sorry about Dean. I'm sorry that you felt like losing me was losing him. I'm sorry about… gods, Seamus, I'm so sorry about everything. But I'm also thankful. I'm thankful for what you did for me. I'm thankful for having you in my life… no matter what we turned out to be. I'm thankful that I had the chance to know you, to love you… in my own way."
She took a deep shuddering breath. "I miss you, Seamus. I miss you so much it kills. And sometimes I forget that you're gone. I forget that I can't just… can't just see you, talk to you… hold you."
Her voice broke.
"You were my saviour, in a way," she said quietly. "You saved me when no one else could. And you saved me as the last thing you ever did. Thank you. I wish that… I wish that it hadn't happened this way. I wish so much… but it doesn't matter."
"Once you told me about a place without this war, in another life, another universe, where we didn't have this war hanging over our heads. And you asked me… and the answer is no. I couldn't. Not there."
Draco did not know what Hermione was talking about, and it seemed no one around the circle did either. But her face flushed, betraying the intensity of emotion shimmering beneath her words.
"But I hope you're there now, and you're with Dean. And I hope you find peace. Lord knows you deserve it more than most. And I'll find you again one day, and I'll tell you this myself. I'll find you in the after, like you promised me you would. Until then, I'm sorry, I'm thankful, and I hope… I hope your soul finds what it's been looking for."
With that, Hermione stepped back, stumbling slightly into Potter's waiting arms. Draco watched her turn around and bury her face in her best friend's chest, her body shaking with sobs.
No one else seemed to know what to say. There was an unspoken intimacy to what they had just heard. Draco felt a pang in his chest, having witnessed something he had no right to. What had Finnigan said to him in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place? It felt years away.
"Don't presume to know anything about my relationship with Hermione," Finnigan said, voice shaking, eyes back on the table. "You… you just don't know. And you don't need to."
The late Gryffindor was right. Draco didn't know. And he didn't need to. This glimpse with Hermione's voice travelling through the wind was enough.
The other Order members started to leave the tombstone, leaving Finnigan to his final rest. They drifted away one by one, slowly, until only a few of them remained.
"You alright, mate?" Blaise whispered.
Draco shook his head. His eyes were trained on Hermione, still shaking with silent sobs against Potter's chest. He stared without care at them for several moments, until a pair of green eyes glanced up at him.
But not the ones he yearned for.
As he and Potter met eyes, the Chosen One shook his head. There was resistance dancing behind his glasses, quiet anger, but there was also resignation. And Draco understood.
Not now.
Potter whispered something else to Hermione and managed to pull her face out of his chest, wiping tears away with his thumbs. Without glancing back at Draco or the tombstone, the two walked away, wrapped around each other, Hermione's sobs disappearing into the wind.
That left Blaise and Draco.
His best mate cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, I guess we should make our way back to Headquarters."
Draco nodded, eyes still on the tombstone.
"I'll be right there."
Blaise seemed to hesitate for a moment and opened his mouth but seemed to think better of it. He nodded and disappeared with a pop of apparition.
Leaving Draco alone with the dead.
The air suffocated him for a moment, as he stared at Finnigan's final resting space. Was there ever anything he could say that would summarize his relationship to this man and his death?
Empty space between the dead and the living, filled with anger, hatred, and a debt impossible to repay.
"Thank you," Draco finally said, his voice gruff. "And when you see Thomas… tell him I'm sorry."
He let out the breath he had been holding, and with it, let go of the weight of Finnigan's sacrifice.
It was over.
With that, he followed Blaise back to Headquarters, the wind guiding his way.
Harry wrapped a blanket around her, forcing the fabric to hold her together.
God knows, she couldn't do it on her own right now.
"Thanks Harry," she muttered, eyes on the ground.
"No problem" he answered. He sat down next to her on the couch in Shell Cottage. She didn't know where anyone else had gone. After her eulogy, it was like the world had disappeared around her, all her friends dancing away like shadows. Without Harry's guidance, she wasn't sure she would have made it back to the house in one piece.
"You alright?" Harry asked her, quietly, not meeting her eyes.
"Alright?" she responded; her voice so full of emotion it was almost empty. "How could I possibly be alright?"
Harry didn't have an answer to that.
"We buried him, Harry," she whispered. "We buried Seamus."
"I know."
"Seamus," she repeated, as if Harry didn't understand the gravity of the situation. "We've known him as long as we've known each other. Since we were eleven. We knew him as the boy who blew everything up, who had an appetite to rival Ron's. And today we put him in the ground."
"I know, Hermione," Harry said, his voice shaking with sympathy.
"Do you?" She asked. "Because I don't think I do. I can't know this. I can't know that Seamus is dead, because it can't be true. We've lost people before… people who I loved. But never like this. Never people who I didn't know if I could live without."
Harry watched her for a moment, a kaleidoscope of emotions spinning in the depths of his eyes.
"What happened between you and Seamus?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, stunned out of her tears for a moment.
"I mean…" Harry started, hesitating. "You never told me about your relationship."
"I only told Ginny," Hermione said.
"But everyone else knew," Harry continued, his voice soft. "When I found out, I talked to Neville… and it seemed like it was this big open secret. But you didn't tell me."
"I didn't realize everyone knew. I didn't want them to."
"But why?" Harry asked, his voice and eyes more open than she had seen them in a while. "Why didn't you tell us about you two? I never would have judged you…"
"It wasn't about judgement," Hermione interrupted. "It's… more complicated. And it doesn't matter anymore."
"It does matter," Harry continued. "It matters because you loved him and today you buried him. And as your best friend… I want to… I just mean… I think it might make you feel better to tell me."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "How?"
"Because it's complicated," Harry answered. "And sometimes simply saying it aloud makes it easier."
She stared at him for a moment, trying to find words to explain the feeling ballooning in her chest.
Harry's eyes were so empathetic she wanted to cry. After a few moments he spoke again.
"When did this all start?" he coaxed.
"Over a year and a half ago," she answered, hiccupping slightly.
"How?"
"It was after a battle," she whispered. She couldn't even remember which battle anymore. They all blurred together now. "We were exhausted, and we just… it just happened."
"And then?" Harry asked.
Hermione sighed. "It just kept happening. At first it felt like something that just happened after battles, when we were exhausted and depressed and fucking tired of the war and just needed to feel something. And then it became more."
"More?"
"More in that we turned to each other not just when the world was falling apart," she answered. "Or maybe it was because the world was always falling apart. And I was just… hollow. And I needed him to make me feel something in an empty hellscape. And he needed me too…" she trailed off.
Memories of loving a ghost.
"Was it exclusive?" Harry continued.
She shook her head, memories of Oliver dancing around her brain. "Not to me, at least. It was never said aloud. I don't know if he…. I don't know. We weren't together, not really. We were shadows of ourselves, trying to find form. He was a drug, keeping me afloat. I guess that's why I never told anyone. I didn't think I needed to advertise my weakness. And Seamus was always a representation of that."
"It's not weakness to need to feel something in the middle of a war," Harry said, frowning.
"It felt like it," Hermione answered. "Seamus was a dear friend, and of course we talked about things I didn't tell you or Ron, just by virtue of the time we spent together. But we weren't… we weren't close."
"What do you mean you weren't close?" Harry asked, confusion evident on his face.
"I mean that giving someone half of you to try and hold that half together is not intimacy. I used Seamus like a tool to keep me afloat. And I thought that's how he felt about me to. But he didn't… and when Dean died and he was drowning… I couldn't hold him together. Because I never had been. Seamus wasn't using me the way I was using him. He was settling for the ghost of what I could give."
"So that's what changed things?" Harry asked. "Dean?"
"Somewhat," Hermione shrugged. "But Seamus felt to me like a never-ending road I was on. I had been driving so long I didn't even realize the route hadn't changed. And suddenly out of nowhere, there was an intersection. And I…" she stumbled over her words, trying to use language to describe the cosmic shift in her world that had shattered whatever façade she had with Seamus.
But she didn't need to try. Harry understood.
"Malfoy," he muttered.
Hermione nodded.
"Do you love him?" Harry asked.
Hermione smiled sadly. "No… I mean, of course I did, but I never loved him like that… I never really even gave myself the chance to try."
"No," Harry shook his head. "Not Seamus. Draco."
"Oh," she whispered, looking at the ground.
"In the woods," Harry started, his words measured. "You nodded when Ron asked you. But everything went to shit so quickly that I never had the chance to confirm. And I…" he stuttered off, hesitating again.
She watched him pull himself together for a moment.
"It's okay if you do," he said, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself as well. "There's so much I don't know… and almost losing you shifted my perspective. Watching the way he acted when you were at the Manor… fuck, Hermione, no one can fake terror like that."
"Terror?" Hermione asked, looking up again.
"It was like the very foundations he was standing on had shattered," Harry said, his eyes distant. "I don't like Malfoy, hell, I barely know him. But I understood him so much in that moment. I just kept thinking, what if it had been Ginny? But I didn't even need to think that, because it was you, and I love you more than the entire world, Hermione. And we almost lost you forever because you were selfless enough to give us another chance."
"Harry," Hermione whispered, feeling tears in her eyes again.
He shook her head. "No, let me finish. I just… I don't want you to hide a part of your life from me again because you're worried about how I would react. I want you to share everything with me, because you want to trust me, because you want to let me in. I don't want to be sitting here in two years at another funeral where you're explaining to me your relationship with Draco Malfoy and I didn't know because I was too bloody dense to listen."
She bit her lip as it began to shudder.
"If you love Malfoy, you should be with him," Harry said, a resoluteness in his voice she hadn't heard in a while. "I know he's a piece of shit and also a murderer, but it isn't… it isn't as black and white as I thought, you know? I thought I knew Malfoy the way I thought I knew you, but there was all this going on under the surface and I had no idea."
"Harry," she whispered again, guilt overtaking her.
"You don't need to feel bad about not telling me about Seamus," he responded. "I understand why you didn't. That it was private. But I saw a bit of it today in your eulogy. I know that it was complicated and that you weren't really together, but he was the mammoth figure in your life and I didn't know. You're my best friend."
She really didn't know what to say.
"I know I asked you to set aside your feelings for the sake of the war, that it was more important," Harry said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt. "But your sacrifice, and Seamus's death shifted things. We don't know how long this war will go on, and why should we close off parts of ourselves while we wait? We don't know when or if we'll win. Any possibility of love or happiness should be held onto. And if… if Malfoy is that for you, Hermione, then I think you should take the chance."
"Harry James Potter," Hermione said, giving a watery chuckle. "Are you giving me your blessing?"
"Absolutely fucking not," Harry replied. "I hate that phrase and you don't need my bloody permission for anything. I'm giving you my support and love. You've always had it, but I just… I wanted to make it crystal clear. In case anything happens."
Hermione felt speechless. After a moment, she had only one thing to say.
"I love you, Harry."
"And I love you," her best friend smiled. "And you love him. And I know it's complicated. But everything is. So find clarity where you can."
She reached across and took his hand. "Harry – I just… thank you."
"I don't want to miss anything from your life, 'Mione," Harry whispered, giving her hand a squeeze. "And I don't want you to miss anything either."
"I… I don't know how to do this," she admitted, her voice small. "I don't know… I don't know how to love him. Not after everything."
"I don't believe that," Harry said. "You know how to love more than anyone I know. And I've never seen you give up on a problem before. Is this not the girl who stayed in the library all night to figure out an Arithmancy question, only to discover that the professor had messed up?"
"But what if this is like that," Hermione answered, panic permeating her voice. "I feel like… I feel like a professor messed up, and suddenly I'm linked to Draco Malfoy and some sort of mystical pureblooded princess. The problem doesn't make sense."
Harry shrugged. "Life doesn't make sense. We're wizards and witches fighting a magical war about blood. We live the lives of the senseless."
"I… this wasn't in the story. This wasn't supposed to be my narrative."
"So rewrite it. You can't control the hand you were dealt, Hermione. But you can play your cards."
She smiled sadly. "I've always had a rubbish poker face."
"I don't think you need one for this, 'Mione. You aren't hiding anything. Not anymore. You don't need to. Not from me, not from the Order, not from Ron…"
Hermione scoffed, and Harry grinned.
"He'll get over it, but it might take a moment."
"A century."
"He'll get over it," Harry repeated. "All you can do is be honest. And Ron felt what it was like to lose you the way that I did. It might've shifted his perspective as well."
"Sometimes I think that even getting punched in the face wouldn't shift Ron's perspective."
"And if he's a dick about this I promise that I will give that option I try," Harry chuckled. "But in the meantime, don't let Malfoy slip away because you're scared about us."
Hermione stared at him for a moment. "We spent the night together."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "I did know that, if you don't recall, the circumstances of my acquisition of that knowledge were quite dramatic…"
"No," Hermione shook her head. "The night you all rescued me. The night Seamus died. Draco and I spent the night together."
"Oh," Harry said, trying to hide the shock on his face. "And… how was that?"
Hermione chuckled. "You don't seriously want a play-by-play, do you?"
"I'd rather be trampled by Buckbeak, thanks." Harry grinned, before frowning slightly. "That was five days ago. What… what happened?"
Hermione sighed. "I left in the morning and I haven't spoken to him since."
Harry stared at her for a moment. "Has he approached you?"
She shook her head. "He's been giving me space. I think… he thought I did it because I was so upset about Seamus."
"Was that why?"
"Yes and no," she answered quietly. "I was so lost, so upset that everything seemed clear for a single moment, you know? It was like being in the eye of the hurricane. A single second of clarity and all I saw was him. And then I woke up and I was in the storm once again."
Harry smiled sadly. "We live in the storm, 'Mione. We can't just wait for tragedy to strike and show us what's important. We need to make that clarity ourselves."
Hermione stared at him for a moment before standing up and dropping the blanket. "I should… I need to go."
Harry nodded, understanding glimmering in his eyes. "I think you should, too."
"Thank you, Harry," she whispered, leaning forward and kissing his forehead. "I'd be lost without you."
He chuckled. "And I'd probably be dead, so best we keep each other around."
She laughed, letting air fill her lungs fully for what felt like the first time in weeks. With no plan, no strategy, and only a feeling of necessity, she apparated away.
She landed in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. With the pop of her arrival, two sets of eyes sitting at the table turned to her in shock.
"Blaise," she said, trying to hold her voice steady. "Would you mind giving us a moment?"
"Sure thing," the other Slytherin said too enthusiastically, practically skipping from the room, not bothering to hide his feelings on the matter.
Then they were alone.
His hand tensed around the glass of firewhiskey he was holding. He skin seemed sallow in the light, but his eyes were sharp. Showing desperate longing.
For her.
"We need to talk," she said, hoping and praying for strength in this moment.
Pain splattered across his face for a moment before she watched him force Occlumency walls up.
"Came to break a man's heart, Granger?" He asked, his voice shaking slightly.
"That's not my name," she answered automatically.
"My apologies," he muttered, glancing down at his glass again, swirling the amber liquid around.
She took a deep breath.
A moment of clarity.
"You're wrong on both counts."
The eye of her hurricane.
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