That night, Hermione laid in her bed, thinking about how much had changed in such a short amount of time. She had broken the walls and spoken to Draco, she had admitted to herself that they had shared something, she had freed him, planned with him, had sex with him, and now she was planning how to tell everyone she cared about that she was still in love with him. She hadn't even decided whether she and Draco would pursue a proper relationship, or what that even meant. Draco surely had pureblood traditions to uphold. Regardless, she needed to settle things with Ron first.
She clambered out of bed and across the hall to Ron's room. She knocked gently on the door before pushing it open to see Ron sitting on the edge of his bed.
She approached tentatively, knowing that he was angry and upset about Draco all but being inducted into the Order of the Phoenix.
"We were so happy, weren't we?" he asked, handing her a photo of herself, him and Harry, where they were laughing and playing in the snow at Hogwarts.
"And naive. Things were far less complicated, that's for sure" she said.
"I know why you're here" he said.
"I would really love to go back to how things were" she said.
"I hope we can" he said, looking to her with a sad smile.
"There's no reason why we can't. We're both adults Ron, if we choose to be civil, we can be" she said.
"I just don't know if I can get past everything with Malfoy. Bringing him out like that, behind our backs, without talking to us about it, having him be part of our… our team" Ron said.
"Our team has sort of fallen apart in recent weeks" she said.
"Yeah, I can see that now" Ron said.
"He has good information" she said after a pause.
"Merlin, Hermione, I know that. I know that it's for the best, but I don't like him being here, given everything he's done. To you, to Harry, to me. I just don't trust him" Ron said.
"I do though Ron. I trust Malfoy. He told me he's changed he apologised for everything he's done, and I believe him" she said quietly.
"Well, I hope for all of our sakes that you're right" Ron said, tossing the photo into a chest on the floor.
"So you'll try and work with him then?" she asked.
"I don't see why it's so important to you, but yes, I'll try" Ron said.
"That's all I ask. I just want to live whatever time we have left in peace" she said.
Ron took her hand in his. "We'll make it out of this, Hermione. I'll make sure of it" he said. It might have been the nicest thing he had said and done in months.
Hermione was so grateful for Ron's openness, for his willingness to accept the way things were. For his ability to accept what she was saying and try to make it work. He didn't even know the truth about her and Draco, yet here he was, being grown up.
She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. There were no butterflies. No sudden increase in her heartrate, no urge for something more. He was her friend. He had always been her friend. He had been her comfort through the hard months, and for that she appreciated him.
She let him go and stood to leave, taking a last look back at one of her best friends. He would either understand, or she would lose him for good.
She looked up and down the hall and contemplated what to do. Although she didn't understand it, she knew that Tonks was probably right. There was something there between herself and Draco that she didn't understand, and she believed that it was only a matter of time till she couldn't hold back how she felt for Draco and acted upon it.
She made her way to Draco's room and opened the door quietly. He was sitting up in his bed with a book on his lap.
"The library in this place rivals the one at the Manor. I'm impressed" he said.
"I wanted to keep the darker ones, just in case" she said, standing in the doorway.
"Good idea" he said, placing his bookmark, closing the hardback cover and placing the book on the bedside. "I'm guessing this isn't a social visit?" he asked.
She felt the rising panic, the fear that came with the idea of rejection, the urge to close her mouth and run away, yet here she stood, desperate to change the way things were.
"I need to know…" she said, stopping when a smile grew on his face.
"You're not one to be shy or tentative, Granger, spit it out" he said.
"The plan, Malfoy. I need a plan?" she asked.
He looked to her, and his smile faltered. The thing she hadn't counted on, the fear she hadn't anticipated formulated in her mind. What if she put herself out there, what if she told people the truth but he didn't want her? As her fear grew, she briefly noticed him get up from the bed and walk to where she stood.
"Granger, stop. I told you I still love you. You're thinking too hard" he said.
"I'm not someone's plaything. If you want in, I'm all in Malfoy but we do it for real" she said.
"Ok" he said, standing before her.
"OK?" she asked, wondering what he was agreeing to.
"Ok, I am still crazy in love with you. I always have been. Since the first time you gave me the time of day. I want to be with you, now and after all this is over and if that means I have to face the wrath of Potter and his pet weasel, I will gladly do so if it means I can do this…" he kissed her, "… and this…" he took her by the waist, "…and this" he kissed her neck, "…whenever I want" he finished.
"Maybe the public displays of affection might be a little over the top" she said.
"I spent months hiding the way I felt from everyone. I'm ready to shout it from the rooftops" he said.
"Well, let's not get carried away" she said.
"Ok, so what first?" she asked.
"I want to be with you, I want to officially be with you, but first you tell me something… All those times where you say 'one day I'll you why you feel like that'. Tell me. What is it?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips.
"How much do you know about soul bonds?" he asked her.
"I haven't read much but I know that there are bonds that exist between beings for all different kinds of reasons" she said.
"Well, my mother knows a lot. Turns out, she has a soul bond with my father, which explains why she has stood by him all these years. Soul bonds are bonds that form when two people fall in love and their souls are compatible" he said, stepping away from her and looking on his shelf of books. "When people, like…" he stopped to think.
"Harry and Ginny?" she asked.
"Ok, sure, when two people like Potter and Weaslette get together, fall in love and strengthen their love with various acts of love…" he visibly cringed at the thought of Harry and Ginny, "…then it can sometimes create a soul bond… if those two people were 'meant to be'" he said, running his long fingers over his book titles and adding the last part in inverted commas.
"So you're saying that me and you…" she began, already knowing that it was true.
"Chances are highly likely. I haven't had the opportunity to ask a soul seer, but my house elf Dinny said that my soul had already been tethered the day I returned from Hogwarts" he said, pulling a book from a stack.
"Tonks…" she said, almost to herself.
"Tonks?" he asked.
"Your cousin, Nymphadora, she said to me today that she sees bonds, that she has seen our bond" she said.
"Well, there you have it" he said, looking at the index of the book in his hands.
"There you have it? You say that like it's something so cavalier… we're essentially, what? Married?" she asked.
"Salazar no. You can be bonded and not be together. It's not like you have to seal your bond or you'll die" he said, turning to a page in the book and handing it to her. He stood next to her and ran his finger down the page of writing. "You can be bonded with someone but if it doesn't work out, the bond will wane over time and die out. You can create new bonds with someone else, you can come back to old bonds, you can have one bond your whole life and never need another. You can marry the person you're bonded to and seal the bond permanently using old magic, you can marry and leave the bond unsealed. The thing is, it's up to the people who have the bond to decide what it means. To decide even if it's real. Some people just ignore it and never know why they feel the way they do" he said, turning to another page.
Hermione read a few lines.
"It's essentially what muggles call soul mates. Someone who feels like they're just made for you, and you have to be with them no matter what. Someone who completes you and their touch alone is… this is why you touch me and it's like electricity. Its why you put me to sleep when I had a headache. Its why I haven't stopped thinking about you since you kissed me on the astronomy tower. We're bonded. When we fell in love last year, it sparked a bond. I don't get it though. You lied to me, we broke up, we didn't see each other. Shouldn't our bond have, as you said, waned?" she asked.
"Well, our bond must have been greater than that. Don't you remember when we saw each other, that last night? Or when I came to you at the Creevy's? Then how hard it was for you to even be near me in the cellar? What about when you finally started going down there and it all came flooding back? What we had, what we have, its stronger than that. Its stronger than years of me being a tosser, its stronger than me being… than me being what I am" he said.
"I believe you; I do. It makes sense, I can see it all so clearly" she said. "I just don't want you to feel like you have to be with me because of this magic string that ties us together" she said.
He stopped scanning the pages of the book that he had picked up and looked to her with a serious look on his face.
"I have to be with you because I can't see my life any other way. I have to be with you because, without you I am nothing. Granger… Hermione, I am in love with you and that is with or without a bond" he said, wrapping his arms around her and making her feel safe.
She stood in his embrace for what felt like hours, but eventually he pulled away.
"Well, I'm going to have a discussion with my cousin and my aunt, and I think you have something you need to talk with Potter and Weasel about" he said.
"Can we just… oh I don't know… arrive at breakfast tomorrow hand in hand with love bites all over?" she asked.
"Well, we can do that regardless, but this is perfect Potter and his side kick we're talking about. They will want to have kittens about it and stress all night" he said, stepping towards the door.
Hermione sighed, knowing he was right. She had to have that conversation and it had to be now. She had made up her mind and Draco was it for her. She couldn't wait. Now that she knew what she wanted, she couldn't wait to have it.
Draco headed for the room where Tonks and Andromeda were staying, and Hermione went to knock on Ron's door.
When he asked her to come in, she instead insisted that he accompany her to the meeting room with Harry, who she also collected on the way. It felt much more practical, much more neutral space, and she made sure she sat beside the door so she could make a hasty escape if she needed to.
When the three of them were seated, she put her hands in her lap and closed her eyes.
"Last year, there was something going on that no one knew about" she said.
"What are you talking about Hermione?" Harry asked, rubbing his sleep deprived eyes.
"I mean, a lot of the times when I said I was on prefect rounds, I wasn't. I was actually seeing someone" she said.
"Well, turns out Ginny was right" Ron said, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the coffee table.
"It was actually quite an intense relationship. We were in love, if you'd believe it. I was so scared that people would find out and I sometimes went to extremes to hide it" she continued.
"Why would you do that? If you were in love and he was making you happy… then why?" Harry asked. Hermione knew that as soon as he had found love with Ginny, he had realised what love truly meant. From the time of his first kiss with Ginny, he was completely changed. Happier, more accepting of love and love's complications.
"No one would have understood. No one would have been ok. No one would have accepted him" she said.
With a laugh, Ron said, "unless it was someone like Malfoy, then it would have been fine Hermione".
She looked from Ron to Harry and back to Ron then down at her feet. She couldn't say it. As much as she loved him, as much as Draco was her sun rise, her sunset and everything in between, she couldn't say it out loud to her two best friends.
"No" Harry said.
Ron stood from his seat.
"It's not like we meant to. One night we just kissed and out of nowhere, it was exciting and new and scary. I hated him but for some reason, I kissed him back, at first. I pushed him away but then the next time we were alone, it happened again. When we finally sat down one day and talked, I realised he wasn't the same, he had changed and so had I" she ranted.
"Yeah, and then he went and killed Dumbledore!" Ron yelled.
"He didn't though Ron. You know it as well as I do and as well as Harry does" she said.
"Were you in on it?" Harry asked in a monotone voice, staring at the wall opposite where he sat.
"Merlin no. Harry, I broke it off with him as soon as I found out he had the dark mark. A few days after you almost killed him, I went to see him, and I saw the mark without all his glamours on it. I broke it off with him straight away and didn't even see him again after that" she said, hoping that her best friends would believe her.
"Did you help him? With the cupboard?" Harry asked.
"No" she answered. "I had no idea about any of it. When we were together, we talked about school stuff, about our lives before Hogwarts, about our friends. He was different. He is different" she said.
"That's why you let him out?" Ron asked.
"No. I let him out for the exact reasons I said I let him out" she cried.
"So all this time, you've been canoodling with him in the cellar?" Ron asked.
"No Ronald, all this time I've been faithful to you. I'd been avoiding him as much as I could, I levitated his food to him, so I didn't have to look at him. I kept him silenced so he couldn't talk to me, so I wouldn't have to hear his voice, so I could pretend like he was some random death eater down there. But when you both didn't come back from Godric's Hollow, I had to find out if you were in danger of a Death Eater attack. I had to speak to him and when I did… when I gave him back his voice, he made me realise… He made me remember all the things I had occluded away" she said, tears forming in her eyes.
She was met with resounding silence.
"The last thing I want is to hurt you both. To hurt anyone. Harry, you know yourself, you can't help who you love" she said.
"You love him?" Harry asked, looking at her for the first time since she admitted who it was.
"I do. I love him for Merlin knows what reason and he loves me" she said.
"So what are you doing? Asking our permission to be with him…? I don't give it" Ron said.
"I wasn't asking" she said quietly, looking from Harry to Ron and back again. "I will be with him. We want to be together. I've forgiven him for everything, and he doesn't blame me for keeping him here in the cellar. I know why he did what he did and someday, if you let him, he will tell you both everything too. I just can't keep hiding this anymore. I can't go around behind everyone's backs and lie. I can't be in a relationship with him and feel happy and not have my two best friends know why. I want you to be ok with this and I understand if you're not. At first. I get it. But please don't sit there and tell me no when you haven't taken the time to even consider it" she continued. "So…" she squared he shoulders… "I'm going to be spending time with him. You'll see us together, we may read together, we may sit closely together, and you may see us kiss occasionally. I'm letting you know, I'm not asking permission" she said, standing up ready to leave.
As she did, Draco entered from the open door.
"Bossy, this one" he said with a tentative smile. Hermione reached for his hand, and he took it instantly. It calmed her immediately.
"Great, first my best friend and my sister, now my other best friend, who is also my ex, and my mortal enemy" Ron said.
"I prefer the term nemesis. But I'm willing to say sorry and let bygones be bygones if you are" Draco said, holding his hand out to Ron.
Ron looked at it and looked at Draco's other hand which was holding tightly to Hermione's. Hermione froze and waited for something to happen, but the only thing that did happen, was Ron stormed out, knocking into them as he went.
Harry stood and looked to Draco.
"I can see that you seem to have changed. I'm happy for you Hermione, but I can't forget everything from the past. Not yet" he said, refusing to shake Draco's hand and following Ron out the door.
"Well… That went well" she said.
AN - Thanks to my followers and readers. Reviews are great. Much love to miania1709, Yosoyliza and Taylor9901 for the positive reviews over the last few chapters. I find it interesting that the two not so positive reviews are posted by people with no name or no link to content of their own.
Darkrini - Sorry to be veerry boring, I guess it took you 9 chapters to notice so something must have caught your attention up until then, otherwise your life must be more boring than what my story must be.
xguestx - I may be taking some plot leaps but if you didn't like it you wouldn't be 38,000 words in before posting a negative review. It's not supposed t be taken seriously. That's the beauty of it.
Now move on.
At the end of the day, I write for me. I write for an escape. I write to get the plot bunnies out of my head, not to please people who are too afraid to link their name to their own work when they leave a review. If you don't like it, move on and have a great day!