I don't have time to answer your reviews separately!
I am SO, SO, SO, SO, SO sorry about that. I promise that I will next time. I absolutely swear.
Thank you Quello Bello, Vu, Lauren, ~The Simon Cowell of Fanfiction.net~, willowfairy, cherryplum11, Ickle Ronnikins Girlie!!, Iluvharrypotter3927, mandarinn orange, Lynseyax Heparedds, blueamber, Darkmoon of Shadows, Crazzieaddict06, M.J. Kobayashi, ILUVRONWEASLEY, Artemis MoonClaw, crystal369, BellaWilde, Angel of Flames, Princess-Potter, and ShadowRogue.
---
Chapter 30 -
Hermione woke up, and her pillow was breathing.
No, wait, that wasn't her pillow. That was Draco's chest. Ah, now she remembered. She had fallen asleep on his chest. That made more sense, after all, pillows don't breathe.
Hermione sighed. She didn't want to get up. She didn't want to go to classes today. She didn't want to have to face people. She just wanted to stay here, staring at the ceiling. It was safer here, she didn't have to worry about what people were going to be saying about her.
But she knew that she had to get up. There was really no way around it. She would have to face then sooner or later, so she might as well do it now.
She sat up and went to her trunk, choosing her clothes without much care. They did, after all, all look exactly the same.
While she put her clothes on, her thoughts drifted to Draco Malfoy, who was still asleep on the floor, but she no longer felt the compulsory need to shoo the memories and thoughts away. She had finally admitted to herself that she was in love with Draco Malfoy, and she didn't feel guilty anymore.
It was like a curtain had been lifted when she realized that she had died, and she had suddenly been hit with the realization that it really didn't matter who was in what house or what family they were from, because she could die the next day, and she wanted to die happily, if she had to die.
Hermione took one last look at Draco's sleeping form before she opened the door of the dormitory and walked down to the common room and out the portrait entrance. She was going to be in for a long day.
~+~
Hermione was really wishing that she had stayed in the dormitory now. People were either skirting around her in the halls or calling her the rudest names she could have ever imagined being called, and then some. There was the usual chorus of mudblood and slut, but now, she was getting if from people everywhere, in every house and of every age.
It was as though the fact that she had been caught in the same library as a Slytherin were enough for them to hate her, but the fact that she had been touching him, let alone kissing him, was another matter entirely.
Girls who she ahd never even met before were glaring at her - either because they had wanted Draco for themselves or because they thought she was a terrible person now - and people she did know were refusing to recognize her.
Hermione was rather put out. She hadn't really expected people to be happy, but she had expected them to be a little better to her. It wasn't like she had been caught with Lord Voldemort, trying to help him take over the world, yet people were treating her as though she were a villain no better than he.
By the time lunch rolled around, Hermione wasn't even hungry. She decided to go to the one place where she had always gone to be alone before - the Library.
Nobody was ever there during the lunch period, so she was certain that she would be alone. Besides, even if there were people there, they would probably flee at the thought of being in there with her, so she had nothing to worry aobut.
She came in and sat down, feeling rather dejected She wished, for once, she would be a normal person. Not the stupid bookworm, not the mudblood, not the radical and annoying genius. Just a pureblood, normal intelligence, average looking girl. Was that too much for her to be asking? Apparently, seeing as she was not anywhere near what she wished she was.
She had always believed her parents when they said she was beautiful, but as she got older, she realized that these were false illusions and that she was nowhere near beautiful. She just wished she was.
It was something she had grown accustomed to, and she thought she was going to be fine, until she came to Hogwarts. It seemed that everyone had been using magic to change their slight problems. Smaller teeth here, straight hair there, and she was the only one that didn't alter her appearance to look better, which was her first mistake of many.
Nobody really knew what mistakes Hermione Granger made, but there were many of them - countless errors and mishaps that she would never tell anyone.
She had forgotten her classes, she had stayed up all night finishing homework she had forgotten, she had had crushes on people that would never come near her with a ten foot pole, but nothing had been as hard as the one error she had made. A rather large error.
She had placed all of her trust and faith in her two friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. She had trusted that the three of them would always be friends, that they would never separate, that they would stick together through thick and thin and would always be there to help each other, but they had broken apart so suddenly that she was left to wonder what had really happened, and she would never truly know.
One minute they were laughing during the train ride home, the next they were as far apart as Black and White.
Hermione sighed again as she thought of how many times they had promised they would never split, and here she was, all alone.
Her thoughts slowly drifted to her father and she reached into her pocket without realizing that she had until she felt the paper with her fingers, numbly she took it out of her pocket and set it on the table in front of her.
Should she open it?
She really didn't know what she should do, she no longer trusted her judgment on things like this anymore. She didn't know what to think or who to turn to anymore, and she simply ignored everything that could stand to be ignored.
But she had ignored this for so long. Every day she transferred the letter to her pocket of her robes, every day she promised herself that she would read it and every day, without fail, she would go to sleep, not opening the letter.
She had to. Something inside of her told her that now was the time.
Now or never.
With trembling hands, she tore at the envelope. It shook so much in her hands that she could hear the paper violently rattling and she could even see it, despite the mistyness that was forming in her eyes, she could see everything, it was just blurry.
She finally made it to the letter part, after four, agonizing minutes of trying to remove the envelope intact. She suspected that she was doing that to waste time more than preserve the envelope. She knew herself too well to think otherwise.
She stared at the now folded letter in her hand.
Now or never.
She slowly unfurled it, and she heard a chink of metal against wood, but didn't look down. The sound didn't even register in her mind for a few minutes. Her eyes were on the paper, staring but not reading. Viewing but not understanding.
Did she want to read it? Could she read it? Did she really have the courage to read it, after it had been so long?
Now or never.
The words echoed in her mind, she didn't really know what to think of them anymore.
Did she trust herself?
Yes.
She finished unfolding the letter and admired the stationary first. She was going to make this moment last as long as she possibly could. She needed to make sure that she would remember this forever.
Her last memory of her father.
Did reading this letter mean that she was willing to let her father go and admit that she was dead? With this simple step was she really saying that she was letting his memory slip away and she was going to move on with her life, never to look back and remember? Was she giving up a happy past for an uncertain future?
Tears seeped out her eyes, and she hadn't even started reading. She wasn't sure that she wanted to, if reading the letter meant that she would have to let the memories of her father, the only man she had ever known and trusted fully, go into a nothingness and oblivion.
No.
Those were her memories.
Nothing would ever be able to take them away. They would have to pry them away from her over her dead body. She was going to read this letter and she was going to keep her memories of her father.
Both of them would be hers, locked away in her heart forever.
Hermione took a deep breath, steadied her mind, and turned her eyes to the letter in her hand.
She had waited so long, and now she was going to read it.
Her father's last words.
---
Hermione,
I must tell you about an extraordinary young woman that I know, she constantly was there to show me what I never knew, and things I never could have dreamed of wondering.
I have had the biggest joy a father - or any man - could ever have hoped to witness.
I have watched a simple baby girl blossom into a most beautiful young lady my eyes could ever hope to see in this lifetime or a next. The tiny baby has grown and changed herself, and me, as I know she will one day change the world.
She has proved me wrong on many accounts, shown me joys I never thought could exist and given true meaning to my life.
Every day, that girl would come home, bubbling with excitement over what she had learned that day, whether it had to do with math, reading, writing or some obscure subject I had never heard of.
By the time she was eleven, I knew that she was different than most girls, and proof of that came when she was offered an experience that every child had dreamt of since they were two or three.
Every child had longed for this, ever since they could walk, or talk or breathe. They had wanted to be special and different.
She went away to a special school, only coming home every summer to be with her family again, and her family couldn't have been any more proud of her. She would come bearing the strangest gifts and the highest marks, and her father's chest swelled with pride at every turn.
She went away as a self-conscious eleven year old, shy and rather bossy, and came home completely changed.
She spoke of wondrous things; things my mind would never be able to comprehend, yet I nodded anyway, smiling all the time.
I was shocked to learn she had escaped death with her two friends, all three of them setting out to do the deeds of grown witches and wizards - defeating and passing tests that people twice their age would never have been able to achieve.
That second year she returned, almost thrilled that she had been petrified, nearly died, and she came with another load of stories that I would never be able to understand, yet I listened as though I understood even half of what she said.
Evil snakes and fifty year ago happenings, it would never cease to amaze me what she went through.
Then the third year she came home, more stories. An escaped murderer, werewolves and vicious trees. Would the suprises and stories never stop? Never once did I doubt she would be able to take on the challenges that arose, for I knew of this young woman's capabilities.
No longer a girl, but a flourishing lady, she set off for her fourth year at school. Again, returning with more stories, but they were no longer as detailed, her thoughts seemed far-away, and I knew that I was losing the connection I had with the girl, she was drifting away from me.
I pretended to not care at all as I bid her farewell to her fifth year. I watched her leave and had to admit to myself that she was no longer a bubbly girl but a polished and sensational young woman. In two short years she would be out, facing the world on her own, and I didn't know how I would handle that.
Would I? I didn't know, but I waved farewell as she left and I felt my heart grow heavy.
She had grown and changed, and I had missed it. I had missed her first dance, I had missed her first kiss and I had missed her first look at a splendid new place, so far away from home.
But was home really with me anymore? I didn't know, for she spent so much time with her friends and teachers at the school that it would almost seem that her home was where she went every year, and she vacationed to come visit me.
I missed her, she left every year with a smile and promises, and every year I awaited them.
I want those stories you promised me, Hermione.
Remember? You promised me, the night before we took you to the station. You said, daddy, I promise I'll tell you everything that happens this year. I promise that I'll show you all of my friends, my grades, I'll share everything that ha[[ened with you. I promise, daddy, I promise.
You owe me stories, Hermione.
Of this year, and every year to come.
I want to know when you have a real boyfriend.
I will see when you graduate. All proud and full of honors that you obviously deserve.
I want to be invited to your wedding day, even if I can't walk you down that aisle, I'll be there, right next to you.
I will watch my grandchildren sleep as tiny babies, remembering when you were as old as they.
I will be there when your children grow older too. They will have a grandpa, even if they can't see him or talk to him.
I will be there when you need help, when you need someone to lean on, when you need a father.
I will be there, every day, just as I promised you I would. I will always be there for you, my baby.
'Mione.
I love you, and don't you ever forget that.
As long as you still need me, I'll be there.
I can promise you that.
Until then.
---
Wet, hot tears were leaking down Hermione's face as she finished the letter. She never wanted it to end. She didn't want to stop reading. She wanted her father. She wanted him now. She needed him now. She needed her father to be there for her.
If she closed her eyes, she could almost remember running into his arms when she was seven, she could remember tackling him when she was eight and having a water fight when she was nine.
All of those things, they seemed to trivial then, but now each one seemed to be elevated, each one had its own meaning. Every one was special in its own way and she never wanted to let any of them go.
Ever.
He had made a promise to her and she was going to hold him to it. No matter what anyone said, he was going to have to keep his promise.
Forever.
As long as the sun still rose every morning and the moon was out every night, she would make sure that he was there for her.
Just like he had promised.
"Until then, dad," Hermione said quietly, almost unaware of the tears that were leaking down her face and streaming across her chin and neck.
"Until then."
---
A/N: Alright, who's crying?
I have to admit, I was crying as I wrote that last page or two. Rather sad, if you know what I mean. I can't believe I wrote that. Ugh, and nothing's wrong with me either! I am happy as can be.
Anyway, please read and review, I'd love to know what you think of what's happened here.
--Saquoia--
I am SO, SO, SO, SO, SO sorry about that. I promise that I will next time. I absolutely swear.
Thank you Quello Bello, Vu, Lauren, ~The Simon Cowell of Fanfiction.net~, willowfairy, cherryplum11, Ickle Ronnikins Girlie!!, Iluvharrypotter3927, mandarinn orange, Lynseyax Heparedds, blueamber, Darkmoon of Shadows, Crazzieaddict06, M.J. Kobayashi, ILUVRONWEASLEY, Artemis MoonClaw, crystal369, BellaWilde, Angel of Flames, Princess-Potter, and ShadowRogue.
---
Chapter 30 -
Hermione woke up, and her pillow was breathing.
No, wait, that wasn't her pillow. That was Draco's chest. Ah, now she remembered. She had fallen asleep on his chest. That made more sense, after all, pillows don't breathe.
Hermione sighed. She didn't want to get up. She didn't want to go to classes today. She didn't want to have to face people. She just wanted to stay here, staring at the ceiling. It was safer here, she didn't have to worry about what people were going to be saying about her.
But she knew that she had to get up. There was really no way around it. She would have to face then sooner or later, so she might as well do it now.
She sat up and went to her trunk, choosing her clothes without much care. They did, after all, all look exactly the same.
While she put her clothes on, her thoughts drifted to Draco Malfoy, who was still asleep on the floor, but she no longer felt the compulsory need to shoo the memories and thoughts away. She had finally admitted to herself that she was in love with Draco Malfoy, and she didn't feel guilty anymore.
It was like a curtain had been lifted when she realized that she had died, and she had suddenly been hit with the realization that it really didn't matter who was in what house or what family they were from, because she could die the next day, and she wanted to die happily, if she had to die.
Hermione took one last look at Draco's sleeping form before she opened the door of the dormitory and walked down to the common room and out the portrait entrance. She was going to be in for a long day.
~+~
Hermione was really wishing that she had stayed in the dormitory now. People were either skirting around her in the halls or calling her the rudest names she could have ever imagined being called, and then some. There was the usual chorus of mudblood and slut, but now, she was getting if from people everywhere, in every house and of every age.
It was as though the fact that she had been caught in the same library as a Slytherin were enough for them to hate her, but the fact that she had been touching him, let alone kissing him, was another matter entirely.
Girls who she ahd never even met before were glaring at her - either because they had wanted Draco for themselves or because they thought she was a terrible person now - and people she did know were refusing to recognize her.
Hermione was rather put out. She hadn't really expected people to be happy, but she had expected them to be a little better to her. It wasn't like she had been caught with Lord Voldemort, trying to help him take over the world, yet people were treating her as though she were a villain no better than he.
By the time lunch rolled around, Hermione wasn't even hungry. She decided to go to the one place where she had always gone to be alone before - the Library.
Nobody was ever there during the lunch period, so she was certain that she would be alone. Besides, even if there were people there, they would probably flee at the thought of being in there with her, so she had nothing to worry aobut.
She came in and sat down, feeling rather dejected She wished, for once, she would be a normal person. Not the stupid bookworm, not the mudblood, not the radical and annoying genius. Just a pureblood, normal intelligence, average looking girl. Was that too much for her to be asking? Apparently, seeing as she was not anywhere near what she wished she was.
She had always believed her parents when they said she was beautiful, but as she got older, she realized that these were false illusions and that she was nowhere near beautiful. She just wished she was.
It was something she had grown accustomed to, and she thought she was going to be fine, until she came to Hogwarts. It seemed that everyone had been using magic to change their slight problems. Smaller teeth here, straight hair there, and she was the only one that didn't alter her appearance to look better, which was her first mistake of many.
Nobody really knew what mistakes Hermione Granger made, but there were many of them - countless errors and mishaps that she would never tell anyone.
She had forgotten her classes, she had stayed up all night finishing homework she had forgotten, she had had crushes on people that would never come near her with a ten foot pole, but nothing had been as hard as the one error she had made. A rather large error.
She had placed all of her trust and faith in her two friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. She had trusted that the three of them would always be friends, that they would never separate, that they would stick together through thick and thin and would always be there to help each other, but they had broken apart so suddenly that she was left to wonder what had really happened, and she would never truly know.
One minute they were laughing during the train ride home, the next they were as far apart as Black and White.
Hermione sighed again as she thought of how many times they had promised they would never split, and here she was, all alone.
Her thoughts slowly drifted to her father and she reached into her pocket without realizing that she had until she felt the paper with her fingers, numbly she took it out of her pocket and set it on the table in front of her.
Should she open it?
She really didn't know what she should do, she no longer trusted her judgment on things like this anymore. She didn't know what to think or who to turn to anymore, and she simply ignored everything that could stand to be ignored.
But she had ignored this for so long. Every day she transferred the letter to her pocket of her robes, every day she promised herself that she would read it and every day, without fail, she would go to sleep, not opening the letter.
She had to. Something inside of her told her that now was the time.
Now or never.
With trembling hands, she tore at the envelope. It shook so much in her hands that she could hear the paper violently rattling and she could even see it, despite the mistyness that was forming in her eyes, she could see everything, it was just blurry.
She finally made it to the letter part, after four, agonizing minutes of trying to remove the envelope intact. She suspected that she was doing that to waste time more than preserve the envelope. She knew herself too well to think otherwise.
She stared at the now folded letter in her hand.
Now or never.
She slowly unfurled it, and she heard a chink of metal against wood, but didn't look down. The sound didn't even register in her mind for a few minutes. Her eyes were on the paper, staring but not reading. Viewing but not understanding.
Did she want to read it? Could she read it? Did she really have the courage to read it, after it had been so long?
Now or never.
The words echoed in her mind, she didn't really know what to think of them anymore.
Did she trust herself?
Yes.
She finished unfolding the letter and admired the stationary first. She was going to make this moment last as long as she possibly could. She needed to make sure that she would remember this forever.
Her last memory of her father.
Did reading this letter mean that she was willing to let her father go and admit that she was dead? With this simple step was she really saying that she was letting his memory slip away and she was going to move on with her life, never to look back and remember? Was she giving up a happy past for an uncertain future?
Tears seeped out her eyes, and she hadn't even started reading. She wasn't sure that she wanted to, if reading the letter meant that she would have to let the memories of her father, the only man she had ever known and trusted fully, go into a nothingness and oblivion.
No.
Those were her memories.
Nothing would ever be able to take them away. They would have to pry them away from her over her dead body. She was going to read this letter and she was going to keep her memories of her father.
Both of them would be hers, locked away in her heart forever.
Hermione took a deep breath, steadied her mind, and turned her eyes to the letter in her hand.
She had waited so long, and now she was going to read it.
Her father's last words.
---
Hermione,
I must tell you about an extraordinary young woman that I know, she constantly was there to show me what I never knew, and things I never could have dreamed of wondering.
I have had the biggest joy a father - or any man - could ever have hoped to witness.
I have watched a simple baby girl blossom into a most beautiful young lady my eyes could ever hope to see in this lifetime or a next. The tiny baby has grown and changed herself, and me, as I know she will one day change the world.
She has proved me wrong on many accounts, shown me joys I never thought could exist and given true meaning to my life.
Every day, that girl would come home, bubbling with excitement over what she had learned that day, whether it had to do with math, reading, writing or some obscure subject I had never heard of.
By the time she was eleven, I knew that she was different than most girls, and proof of that came when she was offered an experience that every child had dreamt of since they were two or three.
Every child had longed for this, ever since they could walk, or talk or breathe. They had wanted to be special and different.
She went away to a special school, only coming home every summer to be with her family again, and her family couldn't have been any more proud of her. She would come bearing the strangest gifts and the highest marks, and her father's chest swelled with pride at every turn.
She went away as a self-conscious eleven year old, shy and rather bossy, and came home completely changed.
She spoke of wondrous things; things my mind would never be able to comprehend, yet I nodded anyway, smiling all the time.
I was shocked to learn she had escaped death with her two friends, all three of them setting out to do the deeds of grown witches and wizards - defeating and passing tests that people twice their age would never have been able to achieve.
That second year she returned, almost thrilled that she had been petrified, nearly died, and she came with another load of stories that I would never be able to understand, yet I listened as though I understood even half of what she said.
Evil snakes and fifty year ago happenings, it would never cease to amaze me what she went through.
Then the third year she came home, more stories. An escaped murderer, werewolves and vicious trees. Would the suprises and stories never stop? Never once did I doubt she would be able to take on the challenges that arose, for I knew of this young woman's capabilities.
No longer a girl, but a flourishing lady, she set off for her fourth year at school. Again, returning with more stories, but they were no longer as detailed, her thoughts seemed far-away, and I knew that I was losing the connection I had with the girl, she was drifting away from me.
I pretended to not care at all as I bid her farewell to her fifth year. I watched her leave and had to admit to myself that she was no longer a bubbly girl but a polished and sensational young woman. In two short years she would be out, facing the world on her own, and I didn't know how I would handle that.
Would I? I didn't know, but I waved farewell as she left and I felt my heart grow heavy.
She had grown and changed, and I had missed it. I had missed her first dance, I had missed her first kiss and I had missed her first look at a splendid new place, so far away from home.
But was home really with me anymore? I didn't know, for she spent so much time with her friends and teachers at the school that it would almost seem that her home was where she went every year, and she vacationed to come visit me.
I missed her, she left every year with a smile and promises, and every year I awaited them.
I want those stories you promised me, Hermione.
Remember? You promised me, the night before we took you to the station. You said, daddy, I promise I'll tell you everything that happens this year. I promise that I'll show you all of my friends, my grades, I'll share everything that ha[[ened with you. I promise, daddy, I promise.
You owe me stories, Hermione.
Of this year, and every year to come.
I want to know when you have a real boyfriend.
I will see when you graduate. All proud and full of honors that you obviously deserve.
I want to be invited to your wedding day, even if I can't walk you down that aisle, I'll be there, right next to you.
I will watch my grandchildren sleep as tiny babies, remembering when you were as old as they.
I will be there when your children grow older too. They will have a grandpa, even if they can't see him or talk to him.
I will be there when you need help, when you need someone to lean on, when you need a father.
I will be there, every day, just as I promised you I would. I will always be there for you, my baby.
'Mione.
I love you, and don't you ever forget that.
As long as you still need me, I'll be there.
I can promise you that.
Until then.
---
Wet, hot tears were leaking down Hermione's face as she finished the letter. She never wanted it to end. She didn't want to stop reading. She wanted her father. She wanted him now. She needed him now. She needed her father to be there for her.
If she closed her eyes, she could almost remember running into his arms when she was seven, she could remember tackling him when she was eight and having a water fight when she was nine.
All of those things, they seemed to trivial then, but now each one seemed to be elevated, each one had its own meaning. Every one was special in its own way and she never wanted to let any of them go.
Ever.
He had made a promise to her and she was going to hold him to it. No matter what anyone said, he was going to have to keep his promise.
Forever.
As long as the sun still rose every morning and the moon was out every night, she would make sure that he was there for her.
Just like he had promised.
"Until then, dad," Hermione said quietly, almost unaware of the tears that were leaking down her face and streaming across her chin and neck.
"Until then."
---
A/N: Alright, who's crying?
I have to admit, I was crying as I wrote that last page or two. Rather sad, if you know what I mean. I can't believe I wrote that. Ugh, and nothing's wrong with me either! I am happy as can be.
Anyway, please read and review, I'd love to know what you think of what's happened here.
--Saquoia--