I Love(d) You (Once)

Chapter Nineteen: Fading

Hermione had been focused, so very focused with her work and caring for herself for the past week. But one day, when she came to work unusually early – this was most likely because as comfortable as her four-man tent was to herself, she hated sitting still, doing nothing. And she realised, one morning, that she had overlooked someone, the state of something, completely.

"Good morning," she said as she brushed past Draco to get to her desk. "We received a new file to complete within the week. If we push hard, we will be able to finish it within three days."

Draco looked at Hermione stolidly. "I don't think I can." Though that was an overstatement. There were shadows under his eyes that he could conceal. The raincloud over his whole demeanour, however, he thought he could not.

"Why not?"

"I'm tired," Draco said simply. "I can't afford to take a break, but I also cannot muster anything in me to go the extra mile."

"Oh," Hermione said, with a slight frown. "Are you okay?"

Draco didn't even look at her as he mechanically filled out an authorisation form. "I am." He scribbled his signature at the bottom of the page and stood up, deciding to head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea before deciding the order of today's tasks.

On the way there he bumped into Artie. He greeted him with brief exchange – (Good morning, good morning, how are you? I'm fine thanks). Artie asked him who he'd be assisting for today, and he informed him that though he was assigned to him for today, but he supposed it would be better if he assisted Hermione for today.

"For today?" Artie asked.

"Just for today," he confirmed.

Artie fidgeted where he stood and he looked as though he were about to point out something obvious. "All right, Draco," he said finally. Then, again: "Are you feeling all right?"

The corners of Draco's lips slanted downwards and he pressed his lips into a thin line. There it was again.

"Yes, I am all right," he promised and made his way to the kitchen. Several colleagues were lining up to use the coffee machine and they mostly ignored him. Others he had worked with previously gave a brief chat about what they did in the weekend, then enquired about his. It was a wasted exercise. After all, they all knew about it, every inch of his life had been published in the newspapers so they were all well-versed with the major and mundane events of his life.

"I saw you and Astoria attend the opera a while back. Lovely performance, don't you think?" Draco pretended not to see some nudges of the elbows to ribs when the particular colleague's morbid curiosity overtake her common sense. Politer conversation on the opera itself followed, by her band of colleagues, attempting to divert the flow of the conversation away from the status of his relationship.

Draco couldn't contribute much to the opera itself. He had been bored, but excited with the prospect of spending time with Astoria. He also could not contribute to the current status of his relationship. Obviously, there was something wrong. Even bystanders reading the newspaper knew. The lack of recent publication about Astoria and Draco's outings were not a result of the media losing interest in the couple. It was because there had been no meetings. And what the journalists did not know, perhaps, was that not only had there been no meeting between the two, there had been no communication.

At first, Draco thought the attention they both had been getting was too much for her. Sometimes people needed space. Particularly after the Wizarding War, space, privacy and time to oneself was something people would give freely. Astoria held a lot of complexity in her heart. He understood that.

But what he could not understand was why she did not even contact him in private. He could not handle her completely freezing out. Logically, logically it was simple. She had lost interest and did not want to continue seeing or contacting him. His friends, in particular Pansy, told him to dump her, and move on. Easier said than done. Some people might be okay with abandoning a relationship under these circumstances, but Draco was not someone who connected with people easily, and he had to know if there was something, anything to do to mend the situation… or at least be told it was over.

He eventually decided to make tea just to escape the office pleasantries and made it back to his desk. On his desk, a calendar which had not yet been turned to the month of February. He sagged into his reclining chair – one of the few luxuries Pucey permitted him to keep after their team had been demoted – and glared at the number of circled days in January. Dates. Then, suddenly an unmarked calendar for the last week of January, and the whole month of February to follow.

A silhouette cast a shadow over him, one cast by a certain Hermione Granger judging by the scent of her perfume permeating his senses. In his periphery, he saw a mass of brown frizzy hair reaching, but not touching his upper arm.

"Artie said he would follow me today, again," Hermione stated. "Are you really okay?"

Draco, feeling very tired from being approached and asking if he were all right, shrugged. "As good as I can be, I suppose."

Okay, so something was definitely not okay with her partner. She flopped down onto her chair and drummed her fingers on the desk. When did it start? Sure, Hermione was a one-tracked mind kind of person, but that hardly meant she failed to notice other people's feelings, right? Right?

Draco had taken her out to dinner on a Friday night. They barely spoke, but that was because he was giving her space, Hermione had assumed. But now that she thought about it, the two of them had spent pretty much spent the whole meal and some more after that in silence. She cast a sneak peek over her shoulder. Draco's figure was bent over his desk as he had continued to scribble slowly over his paperwork. Normally, he would be making inane comments about how terribly bureaucratic all the paper documents were. He was silent now and he'd been silent these past few days. Hermione burned with shame, for she had been completely blind to the obvious signs of Draco…

Falling apart.

That was what was happening. Hermione had seen this happen to others before, but never, ever with Draco. To Hermione, he was someone usually cool and impervious to attacks on his character, and when he lost his temper he would retaliate in a rather churlish manner. She had never, after knowing him better personally, seen him so despondent and passive.

She did not need to ask to know what exactly had turned him this way, and it pained her to see such a foreign character possess the spirit of someone she held a high opinion of.

"Draco," she called out to him. "What are we doing for lunch?"

"You just came into work," he said pointedly. "I will be staying in the office. I don't know what you'll be doing."

"Well… I haven't decided what I'm doing and I was wondering..."

"Go have lunch with the Potters then," he suggested. "Catch up with them or something. I'm sure they would love to see your face once in a while."

She shook her head. It wasn't that she was avoiding them, but being with them reminded her too much of the time when she was with Ron, and only served to emphasise that things were different now. She took a deep breath, and scooted her chair closer towards him as an excuse to collect herself before speaking again.

Draco turned to face her. "You shouldn't cut people out of your life."

"I'm… I'm not."

"So you've talked to them, then."

"Talked to a couple of days before, yeah," she said.

"And actually talked to them?" he asked further. "Not just asking them how they are, and so on."

"Sure," she said, nodding her head. "Look, the Potters aren't the ones who I should be talking to right now. I want to talk to you."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "As we are doing right now?"

Hermione made a face. "You know what I mean. I want to know how you are doing, really."

"I'm fine," he snapped, in a tone which made Hermione jump. She gave him a small frown. "What are you trying to say?" he asked her. "Right now I just want to finish my paperwork."

Hermione's frown deepened all the more. "All right… it's fine if you don't want to talk to me. Do you plan to talk to your friends?"

Draco gave a dismissive shrug. "I guess so."

Hermione placed an arm on his shoulder. "You really don't want to talk about it, do you?"

"What do you know?" he asked quietly, wincing. "Why are you being so nosy?"

Hermione took a long time to respond. She didn't want to tell him anything, since it wasn't her place to do so. But she didn't want to see him suffer like this either. Also, although he was refusing her offer to have a good chat with her, he seemed to really need the moral support. And Draco looked as though he finally understood this too, for he deflated and looked her in the eyes.

"I appreciate your offer," he said. "But talking about it… won't change anything."

"You would have done the same if our positions were switched," she said lightly, as if this was something Draco would do for anyone. She supposed, though, that these days and her relative unease being with her Hogwarts group, despite their tumultuous arguments, he might be the one of the few people she could go to just talk.

"And if I knew something?"

"What?" Draco narrowed his eyes at her.

"Just… my advice is for you to talk to Astoria as soon as possible." She leaned back in her seat and pushed her chair back to her desk. "And… if you need a friend afterwards, I'll be there for you."

"I don't think I will take you up on the offer," he said rather truthfully. And he straightened his posture, looking a little bit cool and standoffish, but a little more like himself.

"Um… are you annoyed at me?" she asked. "I'm sorry I had to butt into your business." And I am truly sorry this had to happen to you.

"It's not that," he interrupted, sighing. "It's just that."

"I was delaying the inevitable. And you brought me into action."

"What?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it." He shook his head, and smoothed the stray hairs out from his face. "I will go and have a talk to Astoria, the one I need to talk to."

It was difficult to fathom to believe she has gossiped to Pansy, and even more so, when she could not understand the reason why was making these extra miles to find Pansy and track down Astoria for a "girl-to-girl talk". In this moment, the horrid feeling of spreading rumours (even if they may be true) and the turmoil of igniting something within Pansy had gurgled in her stomach, all but vanished. In its place, a dull, sick feeling settled in her stomach as her mind – and consequently her tongued – lost is filters.

Hermione she found herself caught in the embrace of a bad romantic film, where the heroine (Astoria was (not!) in this case) was being interrogated and attacked by jealous ex-girlfriends (of which Pansy could be, but Hermione certainly was not.). Hermione never had the misfortune of being in such a situation before, but she quickly understood (as with most things) that this was not a pleasant scene.

She folded her arms against her woollen jumper – her index and thumb twiddled with a loose thread on her sleeve, and this was her only reprieve from the sheer absurdity befuddling her senses. She sat beside Pansy and who sat in front of Astoria, behind a lamp. She felt the instinctive urge to trying her best not to stare into the light, before black spots formed in her eyes. The dots always transported her away to a faraway place, and although time faded and lifted the memories from her mind like age pulled ink from paper – her captive sending sharp curses of pain on her body, her screams reverberating across the stone floor – out of the force of trauma and then habit, her heart rate accelerated. She could not let her guard down.

"What right do you have to ask me this?" Astoria enquired, her arms also crossed.

"As a concerned friend," she answered. She had always been called a busybody, but this stemmed from caring about people. This did not translate to any particular interest. "I am concerned for his wellbeing."

"Sure," Astoria smirked. "And I'm sure Draco is very much flattered by this attention he is now receiving from you now that you and Ron Weasley are over?"

"No, he's very much preoccupied with the lack of your presence in his life," Pansy said, steering Astoria back to topic at hand. Whether the woman was more sensitive than Hermione gave her credit for, or pure coincidence, she took over the conversation. "We are here for one purpose only. And it's this: what are you doing to Draco?"

Astoria narrowed her eyes. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"It's obvious to anyone with eyes this isn't some silly push-pull ploy," Pansy said, annoyed at the fact Astoria was still playing clueless.

Hermione shut her eyes and realised they would need to push a little harder. She might as well, since she was all the way here, and there were no feelings to be spared or to be concerned about. After all, Astoria wasn't her friend. "I think what you are doing right now to Draco is despicable. He looks like he's barely slept, and he isn't talking at all."

"And what am I doing wrong, exactly?" Astoria had the audacity to ask. "We are having our own issues, and it doesn't involve you."

"All right, I know they don't involve me per say," said Hermione. "But you think completely ignoring him is the way to go? He's too respectful of boundaries and cares about your feelings too much to show up at your house and demand and explanation. I get it. Sometimes you want space, and want to sort out your own feelings, but you can't just leave without even telling him, or leaving a note."

"And what good would a note do?"

"Well, at the very least," Hermione said, rather miffed. "You are showing that you are concerned enough to tell them not to worry about you! You don't care about him, do you?"

Now it was Astoria's turn to be angry. "Stop making stupid assumptions about people you don't understand!" she said. "It's complicated, all right? Not everything is rainbows and butterflies for people who were in the losing side of the war."

Ah, that old chestnut. "I have seen many many terrible things done onto other people. Trauma, yes. All of us are suffering in some way or another. But that does not give you an excuse to hurt other people to overcome some difficulty you have… you should be relying on Draco, not someone else. That's just unacceptable... do you know how far he has come to trust and accept people?" Hermione could feel the tips of her ears turning red, as they also did when she was worked up about a particular topic. Luckily, she was one of the people who could still articulate her arguments with force and eloquence even though she was visibly moved.

"Hear hear," Pansy chimed in.

Astoria stood up and grabbed her bag. "I-I don't have to justify anything to you two!"

"It's not that you don't have to," Hermione snapped. "It's just that you can't justify cheating for anything!" There. She felt a sense of relief for vocalising the truth no one had put a voice to thus far, even though it was like a subtext floating beneath the conversations of anyone within their social group and anyone who bothered to pick up the tabloids for the past weeks. "And after you've decided to be with someone else, you decided the slow fade was the best way to end things with him?"

"And you of all people," Pansy pointed out venomously, "thought the disappearing act was the best way to end things?!"

That stopped Astoria in her tracks. "I... just need some time."

"You don't need anything but a good beating," Pansy said, grabbing her by her shoulder.

"Pansy!"

"Chill, Granger. I'm not willing to hurt a hair on her head before she talks it out with Draco. Lest she plays the victim."

"In that case," Hermione pulled Astoria' bag from her grasp and despite her protest, she began to type in Astoria's cellphone. With a flurry fingers she tapped out a message. "There, I set a time and place for you tomorrow since you are too much of a coward to do it yourself."

Pansy cackled and slapped Hermione on the back with approval. "Smart thinking, Granger. And Astoria, we were sort-of friends once. If you have any self-respect for yourself, and enough human in you to know that you're doing deliberately what had been done to you, then you better show."

Hermione was quite curious as to what they were alluded to, but more thankful that it seemed to be working. She saw Astoria shifted out of her indignant stance, and she lowered her head slightly. "I'll go," Astoria said quietly. "I know… I just…"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. No excuses," Pansy said. "Now run along." She gave Astoria a harder-than-friendly shove on her back and wore a self-satisfied smirk as Astoria went away.

"I am glad you were there with me," Hermione said, for much to her astonishment, although she asked Pansy there to do the threatening (they could do the bad-cop, good-cop routine), Pansy had somehow convinced her with some logic and some emotional appeal, to confess to Draco about her actions.

"Well you were there to stop me from throwing a fit," Pansy said, and she felt her temper flare up. And Pansy understood what she was feeling: she was both a little jealous and held Astoria in contempt for making Draco act like a buffoon. He didn't fall apart for her. And for Pansy, if Draco had not toppled for her, he had better not make a fool of himself for anyone else.

So, in some strange sense of comradery Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson spent the rest of the evening at the shop, just talking before heading their opposite ways. Some patrons at the establishment could scarcely believe their eyes. Most of them smiled and wondered just how far they had come since a decade ago.

Review are much appreciated! TBC