10.
Rejection



Silently, they stared at each other. Neither of them really knew how to begin.

"Well?" Hermione asked after a few moments of silence.

"Well?" Ron retorted with arched eyebrow.

So they returned to their staring contest. But after a while Hermione couldn't take it anymore.

"Listen, Ron... I... the scene that day on the corridor, were you serious?" She asked hesitantly, looking into his bright blue eyes. Ron just stared at her for a long time.

"What, if I was serious?" he replied with a daring tone.

Hermione had almost awaited this answer.

"Look, I'm sorry. About the whole thing with Dra- Malfoy and everything. But why can't we just go back to how is was before? Can't we just be friends again?" She looked at him pleadingly.

With a hissing sound Ron turned his head away, breaking eye contact.

"Do you really think it's that easy Hermione? Do you really believe that I can just forget about my feelings, act like they never existed?" He stopped, shaking his head. "No Hermione, that's not the way it works. See, I tried that already. How do you think I could have started a relationship with Lavender otherwise? I liked the fact that she was interested in me, while you always acted so cold around me. But it didn't help anyway." Ron turn to look at her.

"I'm sorry, Hermione. But I can't change my feelings. And I don't want to change them. I love you. That just doesn't change from one day to the next." His face wore an unusually serious expression.

"I'm sorry," he said again, then got to his feet to leave.

Hermione was left behind, still leaning on the wall for support. When the door closed behind Ron, her head sunk down onto her knees.

Draco was bent over a scroll of parchment, deep in thought. How should he formulate it? Would he understand? Draco couldn't really believe it, but before he lost his nerve, he dipped his quill into the black ink. It was now or never!

Father,

I know that I'm a disgrace to the family name, but I refuse to become a Death Eater. A lot of things changed over the last few weeks. You have to accept this. I won't change my mind.

Draco

Slowly, Draco bound the letter to the leg of his owl and sent it on it's way. How would his father react? Well, he'd definitely be pissed off. But Lucius couldn't do anything while he, Draco was at Hogwarts. Sighing he dropped onto his bed and closed his eyes.
It happened the next day when they just returned from their potions lesson. Snape had taken a lot of points from Gryffindor, as usual, for completely ludicrous reasons. Like stirring the potion too fast or answering a question too slowly. Obviously, he was in a very foul mood.

Hermione was virtually the last person in the room, only Draco still remained in his seat. Anxiously, she watched him packing his things and then head towards the exit. As stealthily as a cat, Hermione positioned herself in front of him, blocking his way out of the classroom.

She had had enough of all this, she had to talk to him. To tell him, that they would find another way. Hermione wanted the tell him that she wanted to be with him, even if her friends rejected her. That she missed him.

"Please, Draco. I can't take the fact that you ignore me. Don't I mean anything to you anymore?"

Desperate, Hermione stared into his gray eyes. But Draco only looked at her for a second before he just shoved her out of his way, and walked down the corridor, which was full of other students.

Hermione caught up with him and grabbed his arm, refusing to let him go.

"Don't I deserve an answer?" she asked.

Slowly, he turned around to face her.

"I would have thought, the letter was clear enough, Hermione," he said coldly, wrenching his arm free from her grip and turned, walking away.

For a moment she just stood where she was, utterly shocked. Then...

"But I love you, Draco!" Hermione yelled after him with all her might.

Still with his back to her, he went rigid. All the students in the corridor around them were staring at Hermione and Draco. Among them were Crabbe and Goyle, who looked visibly shocked.

Draco closed his eyes for a moment, then continued to leave, refusing to look back, knowing that Hermione would be in tears...

Hermione watched Draco leave, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening spill. Quickly she turned around and ran away into the opposite direction, fleeing to the comfort and security of Gryffindor Tower, ignoring all of the students who were still looking at her in shock.
That had been the first time that Hermione had said 'I love you'. Draco lay on his bed, arms crossed behind his head. Silently, a single tear slipped from the corner of his eye, his thought still with Hermione in the crowded corridor.

'I love you too, Hermione. But believe me, it's better this way. I don't deserve your love. The two of us would never have a future.'

Worried, Draco thought of the pleading look in her eyes. He hoped against hope that Hermione wouldn't do anything rash, anything, well, Gryffindor. But at the same time he worried about everyone who happened to be have been standing in the corridor, they knew about them now. 'Well, goodbye to my badass reputation', Draco thought.

But why should he care about his image anymore? He had just lost the only person who had ever really mattered to him. She, with her bright brown eyes and sweet smile that had wormed her way into his icy heart.

Hermione had caused him to think about his beliefs and his prejudices, to reassess everything he had believed in. She was the reason that he'd disobeyed his father. She was the reason he had refused to become a Death Eater, and she didn't even knew this.

'I hope the other Gryffindors won't treat her with contempt', Draco thought. Surely some of them had been among the crowd.
Hermione lay on her bed, crying like there was no tomorrow. She hadn't gone to dinner, because she just didn't feel like eating. Her heart ached. It felt like it had been torn into a thousand pieces. She was crying so hard that she did not hear the door being opened. Lavender walked into the dorm slowly, stopping as soon as she noticed Hermione crying, and went over to her.

"My God, Hermione! What happened? Why are you crying?"

Ashamed that someone had found her in this state, Hermione dried her tears with her sleeve.

"I... Draco did.."

She couldn't go on because again she started sobbing.

'So the rumours are true the. Hermione and Malfoy had been dating', Lavender thought to herself, then took the crying girl into her arms.

"Shh, don't cry, Hermione," she tried to sooth her. "Everthing will be okay." She rocked her back and fourth, rubbing her back in a circular motion, much like a mother would do with her child. What a strange comparison it was, the ever giggling Lavender Brown, and the always grown- up Hermione Granger.

But things like that didn't matter at the moment. What mattered was the fact that Lavender was there, and that she comforted her. She held Hermione in her arms till her tears had run out and she fallen asleep.

Carefully, Lavender lay her down on the bed and creeped silently out of the dorm.

'Poor Hermione', she thought.

I know, it's been awfully long (again) and I' m very sorry for it. Thank you to those of you, who are still interested in this story and leave a review.