Chapter 35
Hermione sat, twiddling her thumbs nervously as she waited for him to come into the room for the night, not knowing whether she was making the right decision, but also knowing that if she didn't get the answer now, she probably wouldn't ever.
She was going to have to talk to him at one point, she had always known that, and she may as well do it tonight. She was tired of waiting around, tired of wondering about every step and breath she took and tired of worrying whether she was living a lie or whether it was the truth.
She was going to find out once and for all and she was going to find out tonight whether her life was going one way or the other, whether she was together or alone.
Tonight.
Despite the fact that she was set to go about her task, it still took most of her will power not to simply run away the moment that she began to hear footsteps. It would have been so much easier just to ignore it, to tell herself that all was well, to pretend that her life was going the very way that she had always hoped it would, but something stopped her as she heard the footsteps.
As they neared she began to physically shake and when she saw the door knob turn and begin to open the door to which it was attached, she literally went cold and debated hiding, but it was too late.
The door swung open and he was there, leaving Hermione wondering whether she truly wanted to speak with him or pretend. She was capable of pretending, it would be so much easier.
Hermione couldn't speak at first, her voice seemed to have run away, but she regained her composure long enough to utter his name in a poor imitation of her normal voice that didn't even manage to fool her.
"Hello, Draco,"
Hermione wished to die, right then and there, and simply take care of all her misery. She was making a complete fool of herself and she didn't want to have to live with it anymore. She could barely manage to stop herself from imagining how stupid she must look from Draco's perspective, it was already bad enough to see her like this from her own perspective.
"'Mione, what's the matter?" Draco asked instantly, which told Hermione all she needed to know, that he knew something was wrong. It also told her that any career as an actress was out of the question. She couldn't lie for beans.
Hermione sighed and turned to face him as grudgingly as she could possible manage to, she was going to get her answer right now, but she would also going to make sure that it too long enough.
Ask, don't ask, ask, don't ask. She argued with herself in her head while there was stunned silence in the room around her. Despite the silence, though, she was hearing far too many voices trying to order her about. She finally caved in and spoke, her words slicing the quiet.
"Draco, do you love me?" There was complete silence, and Hermione thought, briefly, that he might have not heard the question. Perhaps she should repeat it, just to make sure that he had properly heard her, that way she couldn't use it as an excuse when he didn't answer.
"Do you love me?" she repeated, expecting an immediate assurance of his love.
Silence met her ears and caressed them with such bitter harshness that she wasn't sure if she could handle it much longer. He wasn't answering, and she knew it wasn't because he was deep in thought. He had answered instantly before, and she hadn't said anything that would cause an instant answer, so her mind came to the last and only conclusion left.
Draco didn't love her. Now it was so obvious. She had been so stupid, hadn't she? It was all making sense to her now, in these few, short minutes everything she had ever wondered was being answered.
Then again, maybe he did and he was thinking of the most romantic way to put it, to make her glow with pleasure. That would be a nice change, she had yet to see him act even remotely as she was imagining now, but that didn't stop her.
Perhaps he was preparing to make the most heartfelt and romantic poem of a statement that would ever grace the earth.
Or maybe not.
"To be honest with you," Draco said eventually, his words sounding both bitterly planned and drawn out, almost as if he didn't want to answer at all.
Hermione struggled not to moan. 'To be honest with you. . .' those had to be the worst five words she had heard in a while, of that she was sure. Nothing good could possibly come out of a statement like that, now could it? No, obviously not.
She resigned herself to hear the rest of the bitter sentence in silence. It was the least she could do. That way she would at least remember the last thing he had spoken to her before the last thing left in her life slipped through her fingers.
"I'm not sure." Draco finished.
It was all she could do to keep from leaping at him and demanding that he make a choice. How on EARTH could he not know? That was like not knowing the difference between white and black, it just didn't happen.
"Not sure?" she choked out questioningly, wondering, now, whether this was better or worse than a straight forward no. She wasn't sure and she didn't really have time to weigh out the possibilities.
Instead, her attention was fixed on Draco, trying to solve the new mystery that seemed to have appeared suddenly. Not sure? How was he not sure?
"Yeah. . ." Draco nodded and began to stare intently at the wall, zoning out and thinking, clearly, while Hermione watched somewhere between awe and resentment. How could he plan his words so obviously? And how could he dismiss her with such an answer? Did he expect her to take it silently?
What did he mean, he "wasn't sure"? How could someone not be sure? He was doing it again, he was toying with her and making her feel so much more pain, hurt and hatred than she should have felt.
Didn't he know what he did to her, really, did he? He didn't know that when he said 'Mione her knees melted and it was all that she could do to keep herself standing. He didn't know that whenever he gave her that look that only he was capable of producing, she felt every rational thought in her mind whisk away.
He didn't know that when he kissed her. . . well, she never thought the world would come back into clear focus. And now it was in such clear focus that it hurt. Everything was so sharp that is seemed to sting her, but it was too late, she had the answer, but he didn't understand, did he?
He just didn't know.
"I want an answer." Hermione said suddenly, sharply, and she surprised even herself. Her voice sounded so much harsher than she had ever thought she was capable of sounding and by the way Draco's head snapped up instantly, she had surprised him too.
In one swift motion, he had stood up and crossed the distance between them, and by the way he was looking at her, he wasn't happy, which she should have figured anyway, but she was too occupied with herself at the moment.
It was times like these that made her realize just how much taller than her he was, and it was even more prominent due to the fact that he was glaring down upon her as though she were the filth of a mudblood he had always said she was.
His eyes were narrow slits and Hermione found herself thinking back to how it used to be, for so long, and she wondered whether she had just lost herself the one thing she had left in this world.
"Maybe you can answer a question like that instantly," he said, his voice inconceivably calm and it was so calm, in fact, that Hermione was even more terrified than if he had yelled in her ear.
"But I'm different than you are." He turned from her instantly, his robes swirling elegantly around his legs, leaving her staring at his back, but he continued talking, and it was all Hermione could do to keep from being completely immersed in listening to his every word.
Hermione wanted to be able to choke out something, anything, but her mouth seemed to have lost the ability to form words, as had her mind. She was stupider than a mountain troll and she had no say in it edgewise. She simply stared at Draco's back, wishing he wouldn't be this way.
"Miss Know-It-All Granger, there's always a perfect time for everything, isn't there? You have dreams about how everything turns out, don't you? Perfect prince in shining armor that sweeps you off your perfect feet and proclaims his perfect, immediate love for you. Well guess what Granger, this isn't the bloody fairy tales, because this is real life." He paused, in which time he whipped around to face her, and she almost wished that he hadn't. Almost, that is.
"If you're waiting for your prince charming, better go talk to Potty and Weasel because he sure as Hell isn't here." He nearly spat at her and she felt her mind slowly starting to make distinguishable thoughts once more.
Hermione marveled at the wide expanse of emotions she had witnessed from Draco Malfoy over the last months. He had cried, laughed, smiled. . . for goodness sake, he had kissed her, hadn't he? Surely that wasn't a normal Malfoy activity.
She didn't know what was happening between her and the blonde that stood in front of her, both of them were so different, Slytherin and Gryffindor, girl and boy, good and evil, but the two of them, despite their differences, seemed to be exactly alike.
Hermione wanted to be the best, and it was exceedingly obvious that Draco wished to be the best in everything as well. Both wanted to be powerful, noticed, intelligent, three qualities that could decide the fate of an individual, whether they were good or bad, whether the fought for right or wrong. It was all too much to think about.
Perhaps in other circumstances they would have been sorted into the same house, perhaps would have even become friends in their first year because of their studies, but this was a world far from perfect, and it sure as heck wasn't happening here.
Both of them stared into the other's eyes, neither moving, nor making a sound. Neither knew what the other was thinking; yet they were connected now more than ever before.
Even as she looked into the hard, cold stone slates that were the eyes of Draco Malfoy, something was different about them, something had changed, and even if he denied it, even if he was too ignorant to notice it, there was something completely different about his eyes, the way that when his eyes were turned onto Hermione they softened, not so much that anyone could tell, but if you were to look carefully enough, you could see that Hermione Granger changed Draco Malfoy.
She had changed him forever.
Hermione didn't know what to think about this, knowing that that was a big responsibility. Perhaps she should have left Draco Malfoy, his evil, cunning, devious self, completely alone, but it was too late to change anything, and she didn't really want to leave him be.
Truth be told, even if he didn't love her, she was sure, especially now, that she loved him. She loved him more than she had ever loved anyone in her entire life, and it worried her that she may have fallen in love with the one person that had enough power to kill her on the inside.
The toll Draco could take on her would be far worse than anything anyone else could do to her. He could literally kill her, slowly and surely, and nobody would know exactly what it had been that killed her. It would be a mystery to everyone but herself, wallowing in her pain.
Hermione swallowed and stared at the window, wondering what she was going to do, because she had this odd feeling that she was going to cry. She didn't want to know the answer to her question anymore, she just wanted to curl up in the corner and wallow in her self-pity.
In one brief moment, Hermione's mood had changed and all she wanted was to be no one. Nothing special, nobody smart not even a slight bit brilliant. All she wished at the moment was that her magical powers would disappear, her intelligence would shrink and her life would go back to what she considered to be "normal". She wouldn't have to second guess everything people told her and she wouldn't need to worry about what she was doing, whether intentionally or by complete accident, because the worst she could possibly do would be to break a lamp, not murder someone.
Hermione was snapped from her reverie by the sound of something falling to the floor. When she turned her attention to it, she realized that it was something that had fallen from Draco's hand and clattered to the floor. She scooted forward slightly, trying to keep Draco's attentions to what she was doing minimal, but he had already guessed her intentions and snatched the item off of the floor before she had had sufficient time to actually see what it was. With a sigh, she turned and went back to staring out the window, waiting for him to be the first to speak, but when he did, it was certainly not what she had been expecting.
"Why?" he said, and his word was as piercing as it was surprising. Why? That was an incomplete question, and there were so many ways for her to begin to answer the question. She had so many questions she would like to ask in return and she had many haughty remarks she had learned from him to answer as well. Hermione Granger did not know how to answer his question, simply because she didn't understand it.
"Why what?" she said, and she surprised herself with the harsh tone she had used, but reminded herself that Draco fully deserved it and she had no reason to even begin to feel bad about it.
The answer, however, never came, and after a tense twenty minutes of silence, Hermione stood, Draco having already left the room minutes before, and followed his lead, her life seeming to make less and less sense with every step, rather than what she had hoped. Not only was she unsure of the one thing that she had thought was sure, but she now had to wonder whether anything in her life fit in with the puzzle that she was trying to solve now. The pieces refused to fit and she was beginning to feel the frustration that followed.
Hermione sighed. Who knew it would be so hard? Had anyone ever realized that by the time she was hitting the middle of her teenage years, she would feel as if she were a forty four year old woman looking back on a long and turbulent life? Hermione sighed again and tried to figure out what she was going to do with herself for the next few hours because it was too early to go to sleep or eat. She would have to keep herself occupied and she would face everything the next morning.
~+~
Hermione woke the next morning, stretched and right when she began to think that she felt kind of good, the worries and problems from yesterday caught up with her and tackled her head on, crushing any good mood that she had possibly had any hopes of enjoying.
She sighed and decided that she was going to forget it and be happy. She had two days left before the school year ended and she intended to make them enjoyable days, not days that she spent laboring over whether her fairy tale life was still possible. She would simply not think about Draco.
Over the next hour, Hermione succeeded in thinking about Draco the entire time. She had a feeling that there was no way she would be able to stop thinking about him either. She sighed to herself, something she had seemed to be doing every moment and at every turn.
She went back to the dormitory and sat down on her bed, staring at the Gryffindor decorations, remembering how this year had gotten to a start. Her father had been alive, Harry and Ron had had a chance of talking to her and Draco and her had been arguing at every turn.
Was she better off now than she had been before this year got going? She knew more about herself and Draco Malfoy, but was it for the better? Hermione didn't know the answer to any of these questions either, and it didn't bother her, which was another difference between her and her old self.
She stared out the window, trying to forget everything that had happened and become that once happy, care-free girl that she had always wanted to be, ever since she had learned that her father was going to die. She had always wanted to go back to the ice cream slurping, giggling naïve girl that she had always been, she didn't want to be blossoming into a young woman, as her mother said.
Life was too confusing, that was the only way to put it.
Hermione barely managed to keep from whipping around to stare at the person that had walked into the room at the sound of the door clicking, but she forced herself to be stationary, if the person really wanted to talk to her, they would make their presence known in their own, good time.
"'Mione?" a voice whispered softly, and Hermione felt herself shiver, actually literally shiver. Instantly she knew who is was, even though she had thought she knew before, and she fought the urges she now felt. Kiss him, one part said. Slap him, said another. She remained completely still, letting the sensation of the unknown drop upon her as she waited.
Eventually she found herself turning to face the person, but she had no recollection of telling herself to move in the first place. Her eyes met the one person that was capable of making her knees melt and her mind freeze.
"Draco." She answered back, and she was surprised to find that she was whispering. Why on earth was she whispering?
There was a deafening silence for a moment, only penetrated by the sound of breath or the shifting of fabric. Their eyes met and both stared at each other, not knowing what to do for a moment, and then he moved, putting his hand in his pocket and when it emerged, there was something in it. Hermione waited for an explanation.
Slowly, almost shyly (Malfoy's aren't shy, she told herself) he extended his hand and she reached out for it, with the same amount of hesitance, wondering exactly what it was that was being given to her.
The box was no more than two inches wide, nor was it any more than an inch deep, but the color alone was entrancing. From one angle it looked blue, from another it looked green, it was the most amazing box she had ever looked at. Gradually she opened the box, barely letting herself breathe, and what met her eyes entranced her even more than the amazing box had.
Inside was a simple golden chain, but it wasn't the chain that Hermione found herself nearly gawking at, it was what was on the chain. A scarlet and orange phoenix was neatly fastened on the chain, a beautiful pendant that wound around itself and almost seemed to have a life of its own. In fact. . .
Hermione watched the small bird-like piece of jewelry move. It moved a wing gracefully and Hermione found herself smiling. There was only one piece missing in the puzzle now.
"Why?" she asked, her voice barely above the sound of a breath.
"Because," he said, and Hermione's eyes left the pendant to look at him.
"Because why?" she pressed, really wanting to know the answer.
"Because, 'Mione," he said again, and right when she was going to press him for a more complete answer, he completed his sentence, leaving her breathless and only able to stare at him in wonder with a small smile spreading over her face.
"Because I love you."
~+~
Awwww, so cute, LOL! I had to make fluff, I'm sorry, I was pressed to do it as well. So, tell me what you think, would you like more?
A. What questions do you still have?
B. Would you like to see a sequel?
C. Random comments/criticism.
Alright, let me take the time to thank EVERYONE of you. Though your comments were sometimes harsh, I did take them to heart and I hope that I have improved if not completely changed the problems that you saw.
Thank you once again!
Saquoia
Hermione sat, twiddling her thumbs nervously as she waited for him to come into the room for the night, not knowing whether she was making the right decision, but also knowing that if she didn't get the answer now, she probably wouldn't ever.
She was going to have to talk to him at one point, she had always known that, and she may as well do it tonight. She was tired of waiting around, tired of wondering about every step and breath she took and tired of worrying whether she was living a lie or whether it was the truth.
She was going to find out once and for all and she was going to find out tonight whether her life was going one way or the other, whether she was together or alone.
Tonight.
Despite the fact that she was set to go about her task, it still took most of her will power not to simply run away the moment that she began to hear footsteps. It would have been so much easier just to ignore it, to tell herself that all was well, to pretend that her life was going the very way that she had always hoped it would, but something stopped her as she heard the footsteps.
As they neared she began to physically shake and when she saw the door knob turn and begin to open the door to which it was attached, she literally went cold and debated hiding, but it was too late.
The door swung open and he was there, leaving Hermione wondering whether she truly wanted to speak with him or pretend. She was capable of pretending, it would be so much easier.
Hermione couldn't speak at first, her voice seemed to have run away, but she regained her composure long enough to utter his name in a poor imitation of her normal voice that didn't even manage to fool her.
"Hello, Draco,"
Hermione wished to die, right then and there, and simply take care of all her misery. She was making a complete fool of herself and she didn't want to have to live with it anymore. She could barely manage to stop herself from imagining how stupid she must look from Draco's perspective, it was already bad enough to see her like this from her own perspective.
"'Mione, what's the matter?" Draco asked instantly, which told Hermione all she needed to know, that he knew something was wrong. It also told her that any career as an actress was out of the question. She couldn't lie for beans.
Hermione sighed and turned to face him as grudgingly as she could possible manage to, she was going to get her answer right now, but she would also going to make sure that it too long enough.
Ask, don't ask, ask, don't ask. She argued with herself in her head while there was stunned silence in the room around her. Despite the silence, though, she was hearing far too many voices trying to order her about. She finally caved in and spoke, her words slicing the quiet.
"Draco, do you love me?" There was complete silence, and Hermione thought, briefly, that he might have not heard the question. Perhaps she should repeat it, just to make sure that he had properly heard her, that way she couldn't use it as an excuse when he didn't answer.
"Do you love me?" she repeated, expecting an immediate assurance of his love.
Silence met her ears and caressed them with such bitter harshness that she wasn't sure if she could handle it much longer. He wasn't answering, and she knew it wasn't because he was deep in thought. He had answered instantly before, and she hadn't said anything that would cause an instant answer, so her mind came to the last and only conclusion left.
Draco didn't love her. Now it was so obvious. She had been so stupid, hadn't she? It was all making sense to her now, in these few, short minutes everything she had ever wondered was being answered.
Then again, maybe he did and he was thinking of the most romantic way to put it, to make her glow with pleasure. That would be a nice change, she had yet to see him act even remotely as she was imagining now, but that didn't stop her.
Perhaps he was preparing to make the most heartfelt and romantic poem of a statement that would ever grace the earth.
Or maybe not.
"To be honest with you," Draco said eventually, his words sounding both bitterly planned and drawn out, almost as if he didn't want to answer at all.
Hermione struggled not to moan. 'To be honest with you. . .' those had to be the worst five words she had heard in a while, of that she was sure. Nothing good could possibly come out of a statement like that, now could it? No, obviously not.
She resigned herself to hear the rest of the bitter sentence in silence. It was the least she could do. That way she would at least remember the last thing he had spoken to her before the last thing left in her life slipped through her fingers.
"I'm not sure." Draco finished.
It was all she could do to keep from leaping at him and demanding that he make a choice. How on EARTH could he not know? That was like not knowing the difference between white and black, it just didn't happen.
"Not sure?" she choked out questioningly, wondering, now, whether this was better or worse than a straight forward no. She wasn't sure and she didn't really have time to weigh out the possibilities.
Instead, her attention was fixed on Draco, trying to solve the new mystery that seemed to have appeared suddenly. Not sure? How was he not sure?
"Yeah. . ." Draco nodded and began to stare intently at the wall, zoning out and thinking, clearly, while Hermione watched somewhere between awe and resentment. How could he plan his words so obviously? And how could he dismiss her with such an answer? Did he expect her to take it silently?
What did he mean, he "wasn't sure"? How could someone not be sure? He was doing it again, he was toying with her and making her feel so much more pain, hurt and hatred than she should have felt.
Didn't he know what he did to her, really, did he? He didn't know that when he said 'Mione her knees melted and it was all that she could do to keep herself standing. He didn't know that whenever he gave her that look that only he was capable of producing, she felt every rational thought in her mind whisk away.
He didn't know that when he kissed her. . . well, she never thought the world would come back into clear focus. And now it was in such clear focus that it hurt. Everything was so sharp that is seemed to sting her, but it was too late, she had the answer, but he didn't understand, did he?
He just didn't know.
"I want an answer." Hermione said suddenly, sharply, and she surprised even herself. Her voice sounded so much harsher than she had ever thought she was capable of sounding and by the way Draco's head snapped up instantly, she had surprised him too.
In one swift motion, he had stood up and crossed the distance between them, and by the way he was looking at her, he wasn't happy, which she should have figured anyway, but she was too occupied with herself at the moment.
It was times like these that made her realize just how much taller than her he was, and it was even more prominent due to the fact that he was glaring down upon her as though she were the filth of a mudblood he had always said she was.
His eyes were narrow slits and Hermione found herself thinking back to how it used to be, for so long, and she wondered whether she had just lost herself the one thing she had left in this world.
"Maybe you can answer a question like that instantly," he said, his voice inconceivably calm and it was so calm, in fact, that Hermione was even more terrified than if he had yelled in her ear.
"But I'm different than you are." He turned from her instantly, his robes swirling elegantly around his legs, leaving her staring at his back, but he continued talking, and it was all Hermione could do to keep from being completely immersed in listening to his every word.
Hermione wanted to be able to choke out something, anything, but her mouth seemed to have lost the ability to form words, as had her mind. She was stupider than a mountain troll and she had no say in it edgewise. She simply stared at Draco's back, wishing he wouldn't be this way.
"Miss Know-It-All Granger, there's always a perfect time for everything, isn't there? You have dreams about how everything turns out, don't you? Perfect prince in shining armor that sweeps you off your perfect feet and proclaims his perfect, immediate love for you. Well guess what Granger, this isn't the bloody fairy tales, because this is real life." He paused, in which time he whipped around to face her, and she almost wished that he hadn't. Almost, that is.
"If you're waiting for your prince charming, better go talk to Potty and Weasel because he sure as Hell isn't here." He nearly spat at her and she felt her mind slowly starting to make distinguishable thoughts once more.
Hermione marveled at the wide expanse of emotions she had witnessed from Draco Malfoy over the last months. He had cried, laughed, smiled. . . for goodness sake, he had kissed her, hadn't he? Surely that wasn't a normal Malfoy activity.
She didn't know what was happening between her and the blonde that stood in front of her, both of them were so different, Slytherin and Gryffindor, girl and boy, good and evil, but the two of them, despite their differences, seemed to be exactly alike.
Hermione wanted to be the best, and it was exceedingly obvious that Draco wished to be the best in everything as well. Both wanted to be powerful, noticed, intelligent, three qualities that could decide the fate of an individual, whether they were good or bad, whether the fought for right or wrong. It was all too much to think about.
Perhaps in other circumstances they would have been sorted into the same house, perhaps would have even become friends in their first year because of their studies, but this was a world far from perfect, and it sure as heck wasn't happening here.
Both of them stared into the other's eyes, neither moving, nor making a sound. Neither knew what the other was thinking; yet they were connected now more than ever before.
Even as she looked into the hard, cold stone slates that were the eyes of Draco Malfoy, something was different about them, something had changed, and even if he denied it, even if he was too ignorant to notice it, there was something completely different about his eyes, the way that when his eyes were turned onto Hermione they softened, not so much that anyone could tell, but if you were to look carefully enough, you could see that Hermione Granger changed Draco Malfoy.
She had changed him forever.
Hermione didn't know what to think about this, knowing that that was a big responsibility. Perhaps she should have left Draco Malfoy, his evil, cunning, devious self, completely alone, but it was too late to change anything, and she didn't really want to leave him be.
Truth be told, even if he didn't love her, she was sure, especially now, that she loved him. She loved him more than she had ever loved anyone in her entire life, and it worried her that she may have fallen in love with the one person that had enough power to kill her on the inside.
The toll Draco could take on her would be far worse than anything anyone else could do to her. He could literally kill her, slowly and surely, and nobody would know exactly what it had been that killed her. It would be a mystery to everyone but herself, wallowing in her pain.
Hermione swallowed and stared at the window, wondering what she was going to do, because she had this odd feeling that she was going to cry. She didn't want to know the answer to her question anymore, she just wanted to curl up in the corner and wallow in her self-pity.
In one brief moment, Hermione's mood had changed and all she wanted was to be no one. Nothing special, nobody smart not even a slight bit brilliant. All she wished at the moment was that her magical powers would disappear, her intelligence would shrink and her life would go back to what she considered to be "normal". She wouldn't have to second guess everything people told her and she wouldn't need to worry about what she was doing, whether intentionally or by complete accident, because the worst she could possibly do would be to break a lamp, not murder someone.
Hermione was snapped from her reverie by the sound of something falling to the floor. When she turned her attention to it, she realized that it was something that had fallen from Draco's hand and clattered to the floor. She scooted forward slightly, trying to keep Draco's attentions to what she was doing minimal, but he had already guessed her intentions and snatched the item off of the floor before she had had sufficient time to actually see what it was. With a sigh, she turned and went back to staring out the window, waiting for him to be the first to speak, but when he did, it was certainly not what she had been expecting.
"Why?" he said, and his word was as piercing as it was surprising. Why? That was an incomplete question, and there were so many ways for her to begin to answer the question. She had so many questions she would like to ask in return and she had many haughty remarks she had learned from him to answer as well. Hermione Granger did not know how to answer his question, simply because she didn't understand it.
"Why what?" she said, and she surprised herself with the harsh tone she had used, but reminded herself that Draco fully deserved it and she had no reason to even begin to feel bad about it.
The answer, however, never came, and after a tense twenty minutes of silence, Hermione stood, Draco having already left the room minutes before, and followed his lead, her life seeming to make less and less sense with every step, rather than what she had hoped. Not only was she unsure of the one thing that she had thought was sure, but she now had to wonder whether anything in her life fit in with the puzzle that she was trying to solve now. The pieces refused to fit and she was beginning to feel the frustration that followed.
Hermione sighed. Who knew it would be so hard? Had anyone ever realized that by the time she was hitting the middle of her teenage years, she would feel as if she were a forty four year old woman looking back on a long and turbulent life? Hermione sighed again and tried to figure out what she was going to do with herself for the next few hours because it was too early to go to sleep or eat. She would have to keep herself occupied and she would face everything the next morning.
~+~
Hermione woke the next morning, stretched and right when she began to think that she felt kind of good, the worries and problems from yesterday caught up with her and tackled her head on, crushing any good mood that she had possibly had any hopes of enjoying.
She sighed and decided that she was going to forget it and be happy. She had two days left before the school year ended and she intended to make them enjoyable days, not days that she spent laboring over whether her fairy tale life was still possible. She would simply not think about Draco.
Over the next hour, Hermione succeeded in thinking about Draco the entire time. She had a feeling that there was no way she would be able to stop thinking about him either. She sighed to herself, something she had seemed to be doing every moment and at every turn.
She went back to the dormitory and sat down on her bed, staring at the Gryffindor decorations, remembering how this year had gotten to a start. Her father had been alive, Harry and Ron had had a chance of talking to her and Draco and her had been arguing at every turn.
Was she better off now than she had been before this year got going? She knew more about herself and Draco Malfoy, but was it for the better? Hermione didn't know the answer to any of these questions either, and it didn't bother her, which was another difference between her and her old self.
She stared out the window, trying to forget everything that had happened and become that once happy, care-free girl that she had always wanted to be, ever since she had learned that her father was going to die. She had always wanted to go back to the ice cream slurping, giggling naïve girl that she had always been, she didn't want to be blossoming into a young woman, as her mother said.
Life was too confusing, that was the only way to put it.
Hermione barely managed to keep from whipping around to stare at the person that had walked into the room at the sound of the door clicking, but she forced herself to be stationary, if the person really wanted to talk to her, they would make their presence known in their own, good time.
"'Mione?" a voice whispered softly, and Hermione felt herself shiver, actually literally shiver. Instantly she knew who is was, even though she had thought she knew before, and she fought the urges she now felt. Kiss him, one part said. Slap him, said another. She remained completely still, letting the sensation of the unknown drop upon her as she waited.
Eventually she found herself turning to face the person, but she had no recollection of telling herself to move in the first place. Her eyes met the one person that was capable of making her knees melt and her mind freeze.
"Draco." She answered back, and she was surprised to find that she was whispering. Why on earth was she whispering?
There was a deafening silence for a moment, only penetrated by the sound of breath or the shifting of fabric. Their eyes met and both stared at each other, not knowing what to do for a moment, and then he moved, putting his hand in his pocket and when it emerged, there was something in it. Hermione waited for an explanation.
Slowly, almost shyly (Malfoy's aren't shy, she told herself) he extended his hand and she reached out for it, with the same amount of hesitance, wondering exactly what it was that was being given to her.
The box was no more than two inches wide, nor was it any more than an inch deep, but the color alone was entrancing. From one angle it looked blue, from another it looked green, it was the most amazing box she had ever looked at. Gradually she opened the box, barely letting herself breathe, and what met her eyes entranced her even more than the amazing box had.
Inside was a simple golden chain, but it wasn't the chain that Hermione found herself nearly gawking at, it was what was on the chain. A scarlet and orange phoenix was neatly fastened on the chain, a beautiful pendant that wound around itself and almost seemed to have a life of its own. In fact. . .
Hermione watched the small bird-like piece of jewelry move. It moved a wing gracefully and Hermione found herself smiling. There was only one piece missing in the puzzle now.
"Why?" she asked, her voice barely above the sound of a breath.
"Because," he said, and Hermione's eyes left the pendant to look at him.
"Because why?" she pressed, really wanting to know the answer.
"Because, 'Mione," he said again, and right when she was going to press him for a more complete answer, he completed his sentence, leaving her breathless and only able to stare at him in wonder with a small smile spreading over her face.
"Because I love you."
~+~
Awwww, so cute, LOL! I had to make fluff, I'm sorry, I was pressed to do it as well. So, tell me what you think, would you like more?
A. What questions do you still have?
B. Would you like to see a sequel?
C. Random comments/criticism.
Alright, let me take the time to thank EVERYONE of you. Though your comments were sometimes harsh, I did take them to heart and I hope that I have improved if not completely changed the problems that you saw.
Thank you once again!
Saquoia