AN: So I know I said I wouldn't be able to post, but my sister graciously lent me her computer so I can. With everything I didn't expect to have the mental ability to be able to write, but it turns out that when you're desperate on a 5-hour road trip... yeah. I've had a hard few days, but I'm making it through. This is a pretty decent chapter, and I'm proud of myself for making it through writing it. Dramione is really kicking in now.
Once again, I wanna thank everyone who reviews and favorites and follows and kudos. Y'all keep me going, so yeah, thanks. My world and feelings and all have been a mess. And just everything... you get the gist of it.
Disclaimer: No. I don't own anything. I'm not J.K. Rowling. You have to have realized this by now.
This should've been expected. For being the "brightest witch of her age," she was rather stupid with her choices.
She'd gone on that date with Draco. It was a lovely date, rather fun and nice. They chatted and laughed and walked and shopped. She faintly remembered people stopping to stare at their open, casual acquaintance. She should've connected the dots.
It didn't take long after the date for the entire school to know that they were dating. Most of the eighth year just mirrored Pansy's wiggly eyebrows, including the girl herself, but some didn't. Dealing with those people had made her rather tired.
She had been sitting on the grounds, picking flowers and weaving a headband with the stems. She had used to do that when she was a little girl, before magic had fucked everything up. Her fingers seemed to remember what to do, similar to how it had been with the piano. She'd actually been reminiscing about that day, when everything began to take a turn for the better.
That memory would probably become one of her favorites. Those in her childhood were either plagued with bullying or smothered with the pain of not being able to bring back the memories of her parents. Hogwarts had bullying, too, but far more extreme, and her anxiety had cemented itself and she let herself be used by Harry and Ron. The war was just full of trauma that she never would want to relive. But the music and the conversation was nice. It was pleasant and peaceful, calming after her near-mental breakdown.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn't realize that someone had approached her until they tapped her on the shoulder.
She jerked and looked around, her eyes falling on the two boys in front of her that had barely changed in the last few years she'd known them. They stood in front of where she sat cross-legged on the ground, with crossed arms and concerned faces that she knew meant that they had opinions. She didn't like their opinions. Their opinions usually liked to vanish the floor beneath her and send her falling, sprawling, trying to figure out who she was and what she was doing.
"Hermione… we're worried about you," began the black-haired and green-eyed boy on the right.
"Yeah, 'Mione," agreed the red-haired, freckly boy on the left.
She glared at them. "Don't you dare call me that, as if we're still best friends and nothing has changed between all of us. Because you would have to be extremely daft to believe that. And at least you aren't that daft, Harry."
They narrowed their eyes, both catching the thinly veiled insult.
"Hermione, we've heard that you and Malfoy are dating," Ron told her, putting emphasis on the last word and snarling slightly when he said 'Malfoy.'
"And if we are? I don't see how that's any of your business. And I'm not particularly concerned about your thoughts on the subject."
"Hermione we've known Malfoy since we were all eleven," Harry added on, ignoring what she said. "We all know how he is, he's practically the embodiment of evil. I'm worried about the fact that you two are dating."
She snorted. "Voldemort is closer to the embodiment of evil, far more than Draco. He's actually quite nice."
Ron spoke up. "It's probably fake. He's probably faking it just to get in your pants."
She stood up angrily, the flower headband falling down to the ground.
"And you have every ounce of confidence that Draco is bad and evil and the utter villain of the stories, and you have the nerve to act like we're still best friends and we're still fucking Gryffindors who hate Slytherins and they do the same. But that isn't right, despite how much you preach that you two always do the right thing. Draco is nice, but troubled with burdens and I feel those, I feel the same way. He isn't evil or bad or a villain. The three of us are not best friends anymore. We're barely acquaintances, if even that. I'm not a Gryffindor anymore, either. I'm a Slytherin, and neither me nor my housemates have any sort of hatred for yours, and for most of yours it's likewise. And do you not have any confidence in me that I wouldn't let him 'fake it just to get in my pants?'"
They didn't even have the decency to feel guilty. Ron simply had poorly concealed fury on his face, and on Harry's was a look of pity.
"Fine!" Ron spat. "Do whatever the bloody hell you want, but don't come crying back to us when you turn out wrong and he breaks your heart, along with your stupid Slytherin friends. Let's go, Harry. Clearly she doesn't want our help."
And they stomped away.
Hermione leaned against a tree and sunk down, putting her head in her hands. On second thought, she reached for her completed headband that had fallen.
But it was bend at unnatural angles, because the two boys had stomped over it. It couldn't be saved, and she didn't have the energy to make another one.
There goes that.
— ||— || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || —
"What do you want to do after Hogwarts, Draco?"
"I don't know, I've never really thought about it. I doubt a lot of businesses would employ a Death Eater."
"A reformed Death Eater."
"Not to them. To them, it's once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater. I'll probably take over the family business. It still holds a lot of prestige, along with my family name. I've spend my entire childhood having to avoid being in that position."
"Do you actually want to do that? Or is it you telling yourself that you have no other option?"
His guilty look was answer enough.
"Draco, you're allowed choices. You've spent your entire life choiceless, but you don't have to live like that anymore. Choose your own path. Stop telling yourself that it's already been chosen for you."
He ran a hand through his hair. "I—I guess. But what about you? What do you want to do?"
"Well, technically I could be able to live off the funds I got for being hailed as a damned war hero. I think I'd want to live in the muggle world. Magic honestly only messed up my life, not saved it. I didn't get any sort of muggle education beyond primary school so I couldn't get a very good job, but those would probably only stress me out. I don't know, maybe a tattoo artist?"
"A tattoo artist?" he repeated, clearly intrigued.
"Yeah, I love to draw, and I love my tattoos. I think I'd like to share that. It doesn't pay much, but it wouldn't be a problem because I wouldn't be doing it for the money."
"That's an interesting idea. I'm awful at any sort of art, so that's nowhere close for me, and I would have to work for money, but I might look into that. Of course, I couldn't survive in the muggle world if I tried."
"I don't know. I think you could with a bit of training."
"And who would train me? Are you offering."
"I certainly wouldn't mind. It would be… interesting."
"That's the only reason you'd do it? An interesting experience?"
"Oh no, of course not! I'd do it for you, too."
They smiled and laughed at her fake aghast expression as they walked past Honeydukes.
"If you went into the muggle world, Hermione, would you completely ignore our world?"
"The Wizarding World? I probably would, honestly. Not the people that really matter to me that're here, but everything else. It's just here, I have expectations and a reputation that people don't want to erase from their ideals. I can get a new start on a path that I choose for myself. I really like that."
"But you wouldn't ignore me?" he asked with a cute pout.
"I could never ignore you, Draco. Never in a million years."
— ||— || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || —
Hermione sat against a wall in the Astronomy tower, her knees pulled against her chest. Draco had joined her for a little, and they talked mindlessly before he left.
Hermione didn't know what to do now. Usually she'd lay and stare at the stars until it was either morning or she fell asleep. But today, for some reason, she couldn't bear to look at them.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps. Her eyes widened and she adjusted her position so she wouldn't easily be seen; it wasn't terribly difficult.
When she caught a flash of familiar dirty-blonde hair, she knew exactly who it was.
"L-Luna? What are you doing here?"
The girl seemed to find her confused expression amusing. "Following the wrackspurts, of course. It seems you have a small infestation of them."
"An infestation of wrackspurts?" Hermione repeated with a raised eyebrow. She decided to humor her. "And, pray tell, how do I get rid of such an… infestation?"
"Easily! By thinking positive thoughts!"
Hermione stiffened. "You're joking."
This has to be some sort of personal torture that Fate or Destiny or whatever had cooked up for her. Thinking positive thoughts. And Luna, no less.
"Luna…"
Luna came to sit by Hermione.
"You've had plenty of positive memories even after all the negative ones. Remember those, focus on those, and everything will be alright."
Hermione didn't even know if she was talking about wrackspurts anymore.
"It's not that easy."
"Of course it is. You just don't want to."
Hermione sighed. There goes that.
"I just — I just can't. I don't know what you're trying to do, but it won't work."
"Hmm. I'm not trying to do anything. You are."
She stood up and walked away, leaving Hermione in a swirling storm of her thoughts and emotions that she couldn't control.