Another Chance?
By Cedar1
A/N thanx to JuxtaposedSchism, Gnomie022, Alexis, professor-fidget, Black Rose 15, hp71605, malfoylove9090, Dracodraconis, black colour vision, Tanya, HogwartzboizRHottiez, Norikukitsune for reviewing the last chapter
Just wanted to say a special thanks (and mini-disclaimer) to Debbie who reviewed chapter 13. Your comment inspired the reason Hermione goes and sees Draco...
This was the hardest chapter to write thats why it took so long am still not too sure on it, but i could keep redoing it 4ever and i thought id better just bite the bullet and post it so let me know what u think.
Ta!
Disclaimer: Mrs Rowling for characters
Chapter 15: ...Love
The guard looked at her quizzically. He had heard, of course he had heard, all about how he had captured her, tortured her. How she had been the catalyst that had preceded a cascade of events that had led eventually to the infamous Draco Malfoy's sentence. But that all made sense, her sudden appearance demanding entry to see him didn't. She was staring at him, her stance determined and hard, daring him to ask the question that he was burning to ask. His mouth felt dry and his tongue suddenly felt unusually large. If it was anyone else he would have been able to speak without a moments thought but, it wasn't just anyone, it was Hermione Granger. She was an untouchable, a person who stood on a pedestal and could not be questioned. He had been trained and told to follow the orders of three people without doubt, and she was one of them. Yet with her wild hair, sweating face and burning eyes she seemed the last person to be allowed into a cell with a dangerous criminal, especially considering what she had been through. He wanted Draco Malfoy dead like everyone else but from a legal point of view, not by the hands of one of their most famous witches. She was still glaring at him, challenging him and he said nothing except release the charm that rendered the cast iron door locked.
She didn't even say thank you as she slammed the door shut behind her. For half an hour he pondered on the situation, eventually deciding to call Harry Potter and alert him of the visit. But by then it was too late.
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Hours had seen events and thoughts circulate around in her head. Spinning details and stomach churning truths performing a never ending parade in her mind. She had been blind and deaf to everything that had gone on around her; Harry dragging her to Yulingers, the sympathetic voices of friends telling her it would be okay. They didn't know that it would never be okay. She would never be okay, not while he was alive, not while he was still about for her to love. She had to end it. She needed to surround herself with barriers that he could not penetrate. She needed to remind herself of what he was, a murderer, not the man that she had fallen in love with, the man that he had disguised himself as being. It wasn't real. He wasn't real.
She had slipped away from the party and headed straight to the prison. At first she thought the guard would refuse her but she forgot how powerful her reputation was and was relieved when he released the spell that separated him from her. For once her heart wasn't a beating rampage when he looked up and stared into her eyes, it was steady and resolute for it knew what it had to do.
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The sentence had seemed like a century ago. Time had crept with a maddening slowness, stretching out his remaining living seconds, apparently wanting to torture him for all his mistakes. Giving him time to think, to regret. She didn't understand that a lifetime of being moulded into the perfect pureblood, the perfect Death Eater, could not be so easily shed. Sharpness and coldness had been instilled within him since birth and had simply been allowed to mature with age. He did not blame his parents for it, for they had been the reasons for his survival thus far. He did not want the last desperate attempt to turn back time and convince his younger self that the dark way of life was not the correct path to take. For who was to say what was right and what was wrong? His beliefs were his beliefs and she had no entitlement to say that they were incorrect. But what he did regret was not explaining to her that she was the only one outside the sphere he had created that had ever infiltrated his soul. She didn't realise that every time he had hurt her it had been a struggle, a fight against the character that he thought he always was: a man who needed no one else but himself.
It was ironic the fact that you were only prepared to stop fighting once the moment had passed and death was at your doorstep. He had sacrificed that skin of a man for one who loved. It may not be some revolutionary transformation, one that saw him weeping at her feet, crying out that all he had done and said that did not concern her were things that he wished he could take back. They weren't. But it was a change, a minor change, which would have made him give up everything he had for her.
If only she could see.
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The door to the cell suddenly opened and his heart actually stopped. So this was it. Perhaps time had not gone as slowly as he had thought, for now it seemed that the moment had come too soon. He kept his head bowed. For a second time in two days he was scared. The heart cradled within his chest was thumping with increasing pace. It pounded against his ribs, pushing their delicate bones into the flesh of his lungs, making it harder for him to breathe. And so here he was in his final hour morphing into the coward his father had adamantly proclaimed he was during his childhood. He wanted to be brave and meet death head on, spit in its eyes and smirk up at its face. He did not want to wilt, to wither into a body that reeked of fear. He had wanted to keep his dignity, his pride; to keep all the things that his father had lost in his last days. But it appeared as if the old saying was true- like father, like son. So he kept his head bowed, concentrating instead on the shadow that had been painted on the floor of his cell. He watched as it shortened with each footstep his angel of death took. Angel of death. He had named it within a second of meeting it. Angel, perhaps the idealistic hope that he was going to heaven rather than hell and in addition the fact that he knew it was a her. Her smell had given her away, a hint of soap laced with the scent of rose buried beneath the denser, heavier stench of cigarettes and alcohol. The idea of flirting with her, seducing her, in return for her allowing him to escape flitted in his brain. But it would probably do no good. People who did these acts didn't have hearts or secret desires. They were impenetrable to acts of trickery, bribery. They had no weaknesses, that's what made them so good at their job. No one was allowed to avoid their fate.
Well maybe he couldn't avoid it but he was damn well not going to give in to it sooner than was necessary, so he kept his eyes looking down. She was standing right next to him now. Her body blocking out the pathetic scrap of light that was allowed to filter through the key hole. She had plunged his life into darkness, literally.
He waited.
And waited.
Why was she not doing anything?
Why had she not jerked his head up and forced the slim neck of the bottle between his lips?
Why had she not slammed his head against the wall and laughed as he had the scalding liquid trickle slowly down his throat, into his insides?
Why was he not screaming with pain and agony as the poison burnt holes through his organs?
Why was he not drowning in a pool of his own bodily fluids?
The steady sound of her breathing did nothing to qualm the tides of confusion that were hitting his brain in relentless waves.
Did she want to him to beg?
Is that when she would start?
With courage that had thus far eluded him he looked up.
"Hermione?"
He didn't know whether the image of Hermione looming over him rather than an angel of death made him relieved or nervous. Perhaps this was the chance he had been wishing for, the opportunity to tell her exactly what he had regretted not saying...that he would give up everything for her. But before he could get his lips around the words she silenced him with unsettling calm, angry ones of her own.
"Don't say anything. I don't want to hear anything from you. How could you lie to me?"
The hatred that radiated from her still form overpowered the workings of his brain, bringing it to a resounding halt. All thoughts of voicing the sacrifice he was prepared to make for her was silenced, squashed, before it had time to even pass his lips. The muscle that lined the elegant angle of her jaw was twitching, pulsating under her skin, beating in anger. He could hear the dull thud of muscle hitting bone.
Or maybe that was his own heart?
He had seen her angry, seen her furious. Yet this was a plane of fury he had never associated with her. It was cold, collected. The type of rage that could not simply be extinguished with words. It reminded him of his father, before the storm was unleashed and the wand pointed. The seconds before everything would come to ahead.
And he could do nothing but open and close his mouth, each time wanting to say something, anything. She took his pathetic attempt as a beginning to a denial.
"No. Don't lie to me. Do you think I could believe anything you say after what I just saw? You're a murderer, a cold-blooded murderer. All those children, all those people. I can't look at you. I could never love someone like you."
Her last sentence hit like a sledgehammer.
"Now whose lying?" He retaliated.
She shook her head from side to side, as if she couldn't believe what she had done.
"I was in love with a person who never existed. The Draco Malfoy I fell in love with is not the person I saw in the pensieve. No that was the real Draco Malfoy."
"What do you want me to do? Apologise? Because I won't. I don't regret a thing."
She was on him in a blink of an eye. Cold hands slapping his face and his chest. He could do nothing but wait for her to grow tired for his hands were bound tightly behind his back. Seconds and then minutes passed and her breathing was becoming more erratic and laboured. The period between punches lengthening and reducing in strength.
It was only a matter time before she stopped and collapsed on top of him with exhaustion. She was shattered, physically and mentally. Why was it so hard?
"I only regret never telling you I loved you sooner than I did."
The words he whispered in her ear only made it harder.
"Why would that have made you a better man?" She murmured back.
"Perhaps."
"As if. I can't change you Draco. No one can. He was right."
"Who was right?"
"Ron."
"The Weasel. You're listening to that idiot."
"Well that idiot is caring, kind, loving. Someone I love. Someone you could never be."
Imagine a million swords piercing into you, straight through your skin, beyond the layers of fat and the solidity of your organs, and into your soul. The pain getting increasingly unbearable with each nasty blow. That's what her words did to him. Tearing him apart, shredding him to pieces. Reflexes took over and he pulled his legs from under him, from under her, and into his chest, nursing the hurt. The action unseated her from his lap and onto the floor.
Hermione struggled to lift herself up for the emotions that ran riot in her body were making her limbs weak.
It was done.
It had all been a lie. She knew what would hit him the hardest.
But it was done.
He had stopped loving her and started hating her.
And she ... well she could tell herself that in the end he hated her. That it had never really been love. That it had only been a glitch in the middle of their relationship. They had gone round full circle and were now back to the beginning, returning once more to familiar territory, hatred.
"Fine go on then run to your precious Weasley. Be the fucking bastard's whore. But don't forget that I loved you Hermione. And I'll always love you whether you like it or not," came his bitter speech as she began to walk away from him.
It shouldn't have affected her the way it did, for wasn't this what she wanted...for him to hate her. But for the second time that night the desire to slap him overcame every other thought that was filling her head and she quickly marched up to him, her hand flying through the air threateningly. How could he tell her he loved her while calling her a whore? In his defence Draco did nothing, he didn't even bother to shield his face from her by turning towards the wall. His silver eyes were blazing into her own, daring her to do it. It was mere millimetres from his cheek that her hand stopped. It was then she realised that he had wanted her to do it. It had been his twisted way of getting his punishment from her in return for all the heartache he had caused her. Well it wasn't going to be that easy. A few hard smacks weren't going to be enough for her to forgive, for her to trust him fully.
"Why are you doing this? Lying to yourself. To me. Why do you want to hurt us?"
His questions lit a flame underneath the pool of trapped emotions that lay within her and she exploded. Screaming, not caring if the whole world heard her." Hurt us! Hurt us! You destroyed us! You destroyed me!"
"All I did was love you."
"Stop saying that."
"Why?"
"Because it hurts too much."
She dropped to the floor next to him. Her hands cradling her aching head. They stayed like that. A couple trapped in the aftermath of their love and their regrets. They could have remained like that for ever, grieving their past and the loss of a future that was impossible. Until one took the initiative, and grasped that last, single thread of hope.
"I'm sorry I hurt you. I was just too weak to say what I really wanted. That I loved you and would have given up everything up for you."
"Your friends? Your family? Your dark fucking mark?"
"Yes."
He hadn't even needed to think over the reply. It had come out as effortlessly as the first time he told her he loved her. Speaking the truth really was easy.
She hadn't expected the answer to come so quickly, so without thought. Perhaps... perhaps there was a chance. Breathing heavily, her chest heaving with the anticipation, she found herself looking straight into his eyes. His beautiful eyes. Staring into him and she knew, despite everything, she loved him.
Did he deserve it? No.
Did she trust him absolutely? No.
Had she fully forgiven him? No.
And yet she loved him. All of him. So completely, so utterly.
In the same token she could see he loved her just as madly, just as crazily. He loved her despite the blood that he had been brought up to believe was mud. He loved her even though everything she believed was at complete odds with his own convictions. He loved her in spite of the hatred he felt for her friends, and all those around her.
It was crazy their love. It made no sense. And yet here she was dropping to her knees, slipping her wand from out of her robes, and whispering the dark incantation that she had memorised near the lock of the shackles that bound his feet.
It was amazing what love made you do. For it was making her put aside all of her strongly held morals and made her prepared to leave everything behind for the man she loved. Her quivering fingers were now working on threading the iron from around his ankles, every so often feeling the smooth skin of his legs on her fingertips.
Love was turning her world upside down. It was consuming her, controlling her, driving her to things that were against all sane sense. And she had succumbed fully to its immense power, as she now worked on removing the restraints on his hands.
"Hermione. Hermione."
He had been calling out to her for several minutes but she appeared to be deeply lost in her own world while at the same time performing spells he had never heard off that released him from his chains. The feather light touch of her fingers that seemed to dance on his hands was igniting jolts of excitement through his entire body. He felt himself getting lighter and lighter, the heavy weight of regret and dread that had weighed on his shoulders since the verdict being lifted in one amazing go. And all because of this woman in front of him. The woman he was never supposed to love, not in this world or he would have thought any other.
But here they were, defying all reason.
It was crazy and wondrous at the same time.
She had finally finished ridding him of his prison bonds and her hand had at last come to rest on his cheek. Not as a slap but as a tender, loving touch. Her fingers trailing downwards to his mouth, tracing his full lips. He was shaking next to her, but then so was she.
For one fearful moment he thought she wasn't going to go through with it. That she would realise how insane this was.
However his mind and his heart were put to rest as he heard the words tumble from her lips...
"I love you."
With the swish of her wand they had apparated away.
Disappearing from the wizarding world.
Hiding from those that hunted them.
Running away from everything that had opposed them.
They were free now. Free to give themselves up and fall deeply in crazy love.
A/N
NOTE: just to clarify Ron was crying because it wasn't Hermione, it was someone else.. who, you decide. And b4 people ask hermione knew how to escape being such an important auror.
ok that was kinda the climax, nxt chappie is bascially just sumthin little. Hope it wasn't too mushy and predictable.
