Hermione was beginning to feel that nothing would ever get back to
normal. Lucius and Draco were not on speaking terms and every time
Hermione tried to get them to reconcile, they would both tell her to stay
out of it. Finally, almost a week after Narcissa's funeral, she agreed to
mind her own business and began preparing for her return to the school.
Her letter of return was accompanied by a personal letter from Dumbledore, once again telling her to let him know if there was anything he could do. "I know Lucius and Draco are hurting right now," he wrote, "and we've got to give them time. I imagine this is a sudden hit to Lucius who has never taken his marriage seriously."
Hermione thought that last sentence might have to do with the fact that Lucius was once caught with Bellatrix. She tucked the two letters away, after reading the letter from the school. It simply stated that she was to be at Hogwarts on September 1, two weeks from now.
Down the hall she trod and knocked softly on Draco's door. "Can I come in?" she asked when he responded to the knocks.
"Yeah." She waited for something else to be said but nothing came. Instead she entered his room, almost afraid at what she would find.
He was lying on his bed, fully clothed, but wide-awake. His eyes were penetrating holes in the ceiling and he didn't move them when she opened the door. "Hi," he muttered, unmoving.
"Hi," she said softly, walking towards his bed. She knelt on the floor beside the mattress, staring at him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he replied after heaving a great sigh. "I guess." His face turned towards hers so that it was only inches away. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. Just wondering if you and your father are ever going to talk again."
Draco shook his head and looked back at the ceiling as though there was something of major importance waiting there for him. "I have nothing to say to him," he finally revealed, "and I think that the feeling is mutual."
"Oh, Draco," Hermione said heavily. "It's not at all like that. You just have to learn to communicate with him."
"Oh yeah?" Draco sat up so fast that Hermione's head almost spun. "Just like you're communicating with your parents, right? How they betrayed you and little Miss Perfect is trying to patch things up with them, right? I guess I should be just like you!"
Hermione was speechless. Draco swung his legs around the side of the bed and stood up. He began pacing the room, muttering to himself, and Hermione was sure she heard the phrase, "Little Miss Know-it-all".
"Look," she said, feeling exasperated. "I know you're upset and all, but I know how you're feeling."
"No, you don't," he shot back at her, turning his dark angry eyes on her. "You have no idea how I feel."
"Okay, you're right, I don't."
"You have no idea how it is to have to face my father every day when I know what he put my mother through. He chose his work over us, Hermione; his work over his family! Bellatrix was also involved with the Dark Lord and that gave Dad something to work with while he was serving the Dark Lord. My mother didn't approve of the Dark Lord and what he stood for nearly as much as people assumed she did. When she caught my father with Bella, she went berserk, screaming foul names at him. Dad's retold the story to me enough times; I should know." He sank back on to the bed, his head hung in defeat.
Hermione moved towards him, still kneeling on the floor. Perched on the floor in front of him, she gently lifted his head and kissed his lips. When they broke apart, Draco stared at her in confusion.
"Why?" he asked, tears filling his eyes. "Why to so many things? Why did my mother have to leave? Why am I stuck with this idiot for a father? Why are you choosing me?"
"I can't answer the first few questions," Hermione replied quietly, "but don't you want me to choose you?"
"More than anything," came his reply. "But I just don't want to wake up one morning and find this is all a dream. If you weren't here, I don't know what I'd do."
Hermione kissed him again, the passion between them growing. She felt his need for her rising and let him invade her body and soul. Afterwards, she lay in his bed, him sleeping soundly beside her, and contemplated her options.
She loved him; there was no other way to put it. Despite all the horrible things they did to each other in school, she truly loved him. So what was she to do now? She could go back to Hogwarts in September and pretend like nothing happened this summer. Or she could quit her job at Hogwarts, which she also loved, and stay with Draco so that he didn't have to live alone with his father. Maybe they could actually marry this time and live together happily in the mansion that they had for a very short period of time.
But would she want to leave Lucius? Evil as he was, he was still a human being, as he had proved to her almost a week ago. He needed someone with him, too, and although he didn't show it, Hermione was convinced that he needed his son. He had already lost his wife and Draco would be a loving reminder of the wife he must have loved for so long.
She got up quietly from the bed, and wrapped Draco's bathrobe around her, which hung by his door. She slipped out of the room and back into her own where she had a quick shower and then climbed into bed. Outside, torrential rains pummelled the windowpanes and thunderous noises shook the walls. Lightning illuminated the sky, making Hermione shiver under her bedclothes. What had she gotten herself into?
The next morning, Draco came down for breakfast in a sullen mood. It was clear to Hermione that after she left his room the previous night, he had awoken and not gotten much sleep. His eyes brightened, however, when they came across her sitting at the table.
"Morning," he greeted her, smiling softly. Lucius looked up from his morning coffee and stared the two of them down.
"Good morning," Hermione returned. "Sleep okay?"
"Like a baby," Draco lied, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "I was thinking of sitting in the garden by the terrace today; want to join me?" He directed his question at Hermione, ignoring his father.
"But it's still drizzling outside," Hermione protested but her objections were swept away with a wave of Draco's hand.
"A little rain never killed anyone," he chorused. "I'm going to get dressed first. Give me a few minutes." He put down his coffee cup and headed upstairs, the stairs groaning their protest as he passed. Lucius gave Hermione an inquisitive look but she simply smiled, guilt written on her face, and muttered that she, too, was going to get dressed.
Once upstairs, she knocked on Draco's door. He opened his quickly, leaving Hermione to think that he had been standing right by it.
"Hermione," he said urgently before pulling her close to him. "Where did you go last night?"
"Back to my own bed," she replied, struggling to move away. "I figured you could use a good night's sleep."
He let go of her and she fell loosely towards the door. "I can't believe I did that," he said, heading towards the bed. Hermione followed him closely. "I can't believe that I let things get so far between us last night."
"You were upset," Hermione began but Draco held up his hand and shook his head.
"Not that way," he said. "I know I was upset although I'm still not sure that was right. But I meant I can't believe I let things get so far between us overall. When you said you were coming here for the summer, I told myself that I couldn't get attached to you this time. You would be leaving in September again anyway and I couldn't bear to lose you again. It hurt too much last time." He took a deep breath.
"So I made myself a promise. And I made myself a Potion. A potion so strong that I couldn't take it. It was a potion that was going to make me immune to love this summer, a potion that would protect me from falling for you again and, therefore, being hurt when you left. But I couldn't bring myself to take it. Instead, I dropped it outside my bedroom window and it hit our gardener." He looked guilty for a second as Hermione fought her laughter.
"I've been thinking," she started, but he interrupted her again.
"Now you're leaving in two weeks and I don't know what I'm going to do!"
"Get a job?"
"I tried that, remember? General work doesn't fit me."
"Right." Hermione truly believed that Draco wasn't finding work because he didn't want to find work. She knew that he was hurting from his mother's departure but she had to make him see that there was a future out there. His life wasn't ending here. His father still needed him, no matter how much he denied it.
"Maybe," Draco began, breaking into her thoughts, "I should try to get an internship at Hogwarts like you suggested last year."
Hermione's heart leapt then dropped. It would be bad enough that she was leaving the house for the school year; if Draco left too, what would happen to Lucius? "Maybe you should wait," she began slowly. "After all that's happened, I don't know if it's wise or not."
A look of hurt flashed across his face, killing the brief moment of happiness. "I can't stay here," he hissed at her quietly. "Everywhere I go, I'm reminded of Mum. Everything has her scent on it and I can't stand watching Dad walk around moping."
"He's hurting too, Draco."
He shot her a nasty look. "Yeah, right, Hermione. That's why he drove her to insanity and slept with her sister?"
Hermione's mouth opened and closed like a fish. She wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that. True, Lucius had put Narcissa through her fair share of troubles, but what marriage didn't experience those problems? When she shared this thought with Draco, he gave her yet another scathing look.
"Like our marriage, right? The one that wasn't a real marriage? Yeah, I'd say we experienced some problems." He shook his head sadly. "Sometimes, I just don't understand you, Hermione."
"Sometimes, I don't understand myself."
Early the next morning, Hermione sent an owl to Professor Dumbledore to inquire about an internship opening for Potions. "Just for curiosity's sake," she thought to herself as she headed downstairs to breakfast.
She spent the day outside in the sunshine. It had finally stopped raining the night before and everything was fresh and new. The faint scent of rain still hung in the air like the dewdrops that clung to the flowers in the garden around her. She sat on the bench, her feet up on the other end, and jotted mad notes in her journal. She relayed her feelings about Narcissa and Narcissa's death. She confessed that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make the connection between Narcissa Black, Draco's mum, and Bellatrix Black, the personification of evil that killed Sirius Black. "The whole family's muddled," she wrote furiously, eager to catch every word that flew through her brain. "There's so many Blacks and they all venture in different directions, which makes them so much harder to trace. I guess that was good for them, though."
"Writing about me?" came a voice from behind her. She spun around quickly, knocking her legs to the ground.
"Don't scare me like that!" she cried, taking a swipe at Draco with her closed notebook. "You scared the hell out of me!"
He gasped in sarcasm. "Hermione Granger swore! I'm appalled!"
She grinned. "If that's the worst thing I say to you today, consider yourself lucky." She grew serious again. "What was with your father at breakfast today? He seemed rather moody about something."
"He went back to work for the late shift last night," Draco recalled, "and got into a fight with Peter Pettigrew."
"What happened?"
Draco shrugged. "I don't know. Pettigrew thinks the others should worship the ground he walks on because he helped bring the Dark Lord back to life. Dad doesn't approve of his attitude and they're always squabbling." He looked down at the ground. "Doesn't matter anyway. What are you doing out here?"
Hermione raised her journal slightly. "Writing. You?"
"Boredom. You can only read the same books so many times."
Hermione knew this last statement was a direct hint on how bored Draco was and how he needed to get out. She didn't want to tell him that she had sent a letter to Dumbledore for positions available in the Potions area, at least until she got a response.
"I've got to go to Diagon Alley for a bit," she told him, standing up. "Would you care to join me?"
"Nah." He shook his head, his blond hair flying wildly around his head. "I'm going to sit back here and enjoy the sunshine." He kicked out on the bench and Hermione made her departure, wondering how it was possible for Draco to be so angry one minute and so content the next.
Her letter of return was accompanied by a personal letter from Dumbledore, once again telling her to let him know if there was anything he could do. "I know Lucius and Draco are hurting right now," he wrote, "and we've got to give them time. I imagine this is a sudden hit to Lucius who has never taken his marriage seriously."
Hermione thought that last sentence might have to do with the fact that Lucius was once caught with Bellatrix. She tucked the two letters away, after reading the letter from the school. It simply stated that she was to be at Hogwarts on September 1, two weeks from now.
Down the hall she trod and knocked softly on Draco's door. "Can I come in?" she asked when he responded to the knocks.
"Yeah." She waited for something else to be said but nothing came. Instead she entered his room, almost afraid at what she would find.
He was lying on his bed, fully clothed, but wide-awake. His eyes were penetrating holes in the ceiling and he didn't move them when she opened the door. "Hi," he muttered, unmoving.
"Hi," she said softly, walking towards his bed. She knelt on the floor beside the mattress, staring at him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he replied after heaving a great sigh. "I guess." His face turned towards hers so that it was only inches away. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. Just wondering if you and your father are ever going to talk again."
Draco shook his head and looked back at the ceiling as though there was something of major importance waiting there for him. "I have nothing to say to him," he finally revealed, "and I think that the feeling is mutual."
"Oh, Draco," Hermione said heavily. "It's not at all like that. You just have to learn to communicate with him."
"Oh yeah?" Draco sat up so fast that Hermione's head almost spun. "Just like you're communicating with your parents, right? How they betrayed you and little Miss Perfect is trying to patch things up with them, right? I guess I should be just like you!"
Hermione was speechless. Draco swung his legs around the side of the bed and stood up. He began pacing the room, muttering to himself, and Hermione was sure she heard the phrase, "Little Miss Know-it-all".
"Look," she said, feeling exasperated. "I know you're upset and all, but I know how you're feeling."
"No, you don't," he shot back at her, turning his dark angry eyes on her. "You have no idea how I feel."
"Okay, you're right, I don't."
"You have no idea how it is to have to face my father every day when I know what he put my mother through. He chose his work over us, Hermione; his work over his family! Bellatrix was also involved with the Dark Lord and that gave Dad something to work with while he was serving the Dark Lord. My mother didn't approve of the Dark Lord and what he stood for nearly as much as people assumed she did. When she caught my father with Bella, she went berserk, screaming foul names at him. Dad's retold the story to me enough times; I should know." He sank back on to the bed, his head hung in defeat.
Hermione moved towards him, still kneeling on the floor. Perched on the floor in front of him, she gently lifted his head and kissed his lips. When they broke apart, Draco stared at her in confusion.
"Why?" he asked, tears filling his eyes. "Why to so many things? Why did my mother have to leave? Why am I stuck with this idiot for a father? Why are you choosing me?"
"I can't answer the first few questions," Hermione replied quietly, "but don't you want me to choose you?"
"More than anything," came his reply. "But I just don't want to wake up one morning and find this is all a dream. If you weren't here, I don't know what I'd do."
Hermione kissed him again, the passion between them growing. She felt his need for her rising and let him invade her body and soul. Afterwards, she lay in his bed, him sleeping soundly beside her, and contemplated her options.
She loved him; there was no other way to put it. Despite all the horrible things they did to each other in school, she truly loved him. So what was she to do now? She could go back to Hogwarts in September and pretend like nothing happened this summer. Or she could quit her job at Hogwarts, which she also loved, and stay with Draco so that he didn't have to live alone with his father. Maybe they could actually marry this time and live together happily in the mansion that they had for a very short period of time.
But would she want to leave Lucius? Evil as he was, he was still a human being, as he had proved to her almost a week ago. He needed someone with him, too, and although he didn't show it, Hermione was convinced that he needed his son. He had already lost his wife and Draco would be a loving reminder of the wife he must have loved for so long.
She got up quietly from the bed, and wrapped Draco's bathrobe around her, which hung by his door. She slipped out of the room and back into her own where she had a quick shower and then climbed into bed. Outside, torrential rains pummelled the windowpanes and thunderous noises shook the walls. Lightning illuminated the sky, making Hermione shiver under her bedclothes. What had she gotten herself into?
The next morning, Draco came down for breakfast in a sullen mood. It was clear to Hermione that after she left his room the previous night, he had awoken and not gotten much sleep. His eyes brightened, however, when they came across her sitting at the table.
"Morning," he greeted her, smiling softly. Lucius looked up from his morning coffee and stared the two of them down.
"Good morning," Hermione returned. "Sleep okay?"
"Like a baby," Draco lied, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "I was thinking of sitting in the garden by the terrace today; want to join me?" He directed his question at Hermione, ignoring his father.
"But it's still drizzling outside," Hermione protested but her objections were swept away with a wave of Draco's hand.
"A little rain never killed anyone," he chorused. "I'm going to get dressed first. Give me a few minutes." He put down his coffee cup and headed upstairs, the stairs groaning their protest as he passed. Lucius gave Hermione an inquisitive look but she simply smiled, guilt written on her face, and muttered that she, too, was going to get dressed.
Once upstairs, she knocked on Draco's door. He opened his quickly, leaving Hermione to think that he had been standing right by it.
"Hermione," he said urgently before pulling her close to him. "Where did you go last night?"
"Back to my own bed," she replied, struggling to move away. "I figured you could use a good night's sleep."
He let go of her and she fell loosely towards the door. "I can't believe I did that," he said, heading towards the bed. Hermione followed him closely. "I can't believe that I let things get so far between us last night."
"You were upset," Hermione began but Draco held up his hand and shook his head.
"Not that way," he said. "I know I was upset although I'm still not sure that was right. But I meant I can't believe I let things get so far between us overall. When you said you were coming here for the summer, I told myself that I couldn't get attached to you this time. You would be leaving in September again anyway and I couldn't bear to lose you again. It hurt too much last time." He took a deep breath.
"So I made myself a promise. And I made myself a Potion. A potion so strong that I couldn't take it. It was a potion that was going to make me immune to love this summer, a potion that would protect me from falling for you again and, therefore, being hurt when you left. But I couldn't bring myself to take it. Instead, I dropped it outside my bedroom window and it hit our gardener." He looked guilty for a second as Hermione fought her laughter.
"I've been thinking," she started, but he interrupted her again.
"Now you're leaving in two weeks and I don't know what I'm going to do!"
"Get a job?"
"I tried that, remember? General work doesn't fit me."
"Right." Hermione truly believed that Draco wasn't finding work because he didn't want to find work. She knew that he was hurting from his mother's departure but she had to make him see that there was a future out there. His life wasn't ending here. His father still needed him, no matter how much he denied it.
"Maybe," Draco began, breaking into her thoughts, "I should try to get an internship at Hogwarts like you suggested last year."
Hermione's heart leapt then dropped. It would be bad enough that she was leaving the house for the school year; if Draco left too, what would happen to Lucius? "Maybe you should wait," she began slowly. "After all that's happened, I don't know if it's wise or not."
A look of hurt flashed across his face, killing the brief moment of happiness. "I can't stay here," he hissed at her quietly. "Everywhere I go, I'm reminded of Mum. Everything has her scent on it and I can't stand watching Dad walk around moping."
"He's hurting too, Draco."
He shot her a nasty look. "Yeah, right, Hermione. That's why he drove her to insanity and slept with her sister?"
Hermione's mouth opened and closed like a fish. She wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that. True, Lucius had put Narcissa through her fair share of troubles, but what marriage didn't experience those problems? When she shared this thought with Draco, he gave her yet another scathing look.
"Like our marriage, right? The one that wasn't a real marriage? Yeah, I'd say we experienced some problems." He shook his head sadly. "Sometimes, I just don't understand you, Hermione."
"Sometimes, I don't understand myself."
Early the next morning, Hermione sent an owl to Professor Dumbledore to inquire about an internship opening for Potions. "Just for curiosity's sake," she thought to herself as she headed downstairs to breakfast.
She spent the day outside in the sunshine. It had finally stopped raining the night before and everything was fresh and new. The faint scent of rain still hung in the air like the dewdrops that clung to the flowers in the garden around her. She sat on the bench, her feet up on the other end, and jotted mad notes in her journal. She relayed her feelings about Narcissa and Narcissa's death. She confessed that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make the connection between Narcissa Black, Draco's mum, and Bellatrix Black, the personification of evil that killed Sirius Black. "The whole family's muddled," she wrote furiously, eager to catch every word that flew through her brain. "There's so many Blacks and they all venture in different directions, which makes them so much harder to trace. I guess that was good for them, though."
"Writing about me?" came a voice from behind her. She spun around quickly, knocking her legs to the ground.
"Don't scare me like that!" she cried, taking a swipe at Draco with her closed notebook. "You scared the hell out of me!"
He gasped in sarcasm. "Hermione Granger swore! I'm appalled!"
She grinned. "If that's the worst thing I say to you today, consider yourself lucky." She grew serious again. "What was with your father at breakfast today? He seemed rather moody about something."
"He went back to work for the late shift last night," Draco recalled, "and got into a fight with Peter Pettigrew."
"What happened?"
Draco shrugged. "I don't know. Pettigrew thinks the others should worship the ground he walks on because he helped bring the Dark Lord back to life. Dad doesn't approve of his attitude and they're always squabbling." He looked down at the ground. "Doesn't matter anyway. What are you doing out here?"
Hermione raised her journal slightly. "Writing. You?"
"Boredom. You can only read the same books so many times."
Hermione knew this last statement was a direct hint on how bored Draco was and how he needed to get out. She didn't want to tell him that she had sent a letter to Dumbledore for positions available in the Potions area, at least until she got a response.
"I've got to go to Diagon Alley for a bit," she told him, standing up. "Would you care to join me?"
"Nah." He shook his head, his blond hair flying wildly around his head. "I'm going to sit back here and enjoy the sunshine." He kicked out on the bench and Hermione made her departure, wondering how it was possible for Draco to be so angry one minute and so content the next.