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Chapter 4: Feelings of Loneliness and Want
Hermione woke with her face stiff and her eyes almost glued shut. She scrubbed sleepily at them and sat up. Glancing to her left, she saw Malfoy's sleeping form in her bed and completely forgetting what had happened the night before, screeched and fell of the bed, taking the sheet with her. Malfoy jumped and yelled "Battle stations, men!" and fell off the other side. Hermione lay there for a moment as her memory returned and the realization of what Malfoy had just said hit her. Climbing her way up onto the bed, she crawled to the other side with the sheet wrapped around her.
"Battle stations?" she asked. He looked up at her angrily. She laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay, one time Andrew was asleep on my couch and when I threw a pillow at him, he yelled "Retreat! Leave the tequila and save yourselves!" so, I'm guessing battles are what men dream about." He chuckled and shook his head.
"Bet it wasn't as funny as what you were murmmering in your sleep." His voiced transformed into a poor impression of Hermione. "No, I didn't order salmon with chocolate chips. I said I wanted a chocolate chip cookie! Where's my cookie?" It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud," he said through chuckles. Hermione gasped and smacked him in the face with a pillow. With her arms crossed over the pillow they stared at each other for a moment. He reached up and grabbed her hair, which was hanging off the edge of the bed. He twirled it around his fingers, then raised it to his lips and kissed it. His action sparked something in Hermione and she jumped.
"What's wrong with us? You're supposed to hate me. Why have you suddenly changed? I mean, people don't just change into a different person all of a sudden. And after what you've put me through for 6 years, how can I trust you?" she pulled away from the edge of the bed. Malfoy sat up scowling.
"God, are we back to that again?" he asked harshly, standing. Hermione huffed. "We've never talked about it. I want the truth, Malfoy! What is your motive?"
"I have to have a motive? Ugh!" he walked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.
"I'm not finished yet, Malfoy! Don't you walk away from me!" she pulled at the door handle, but he'd locked it.
"How can I not walk away from you? You need to learn to trust people."
"What? How can I trust you after all that you've put me through? How can you expect me to trust you?"
"Well, I'm not like that! I'm not the bad guy anymore! Why can't you just accept that? It's not fair!"
"Draco!" she slammed her fist against the door. "I can't accept anything anymore! It just doesn't work like that! I need you to prove to me that you've changed." She heard him sigh through the door and lean against it. He slid down it and she sat too.
"Hermione, I never wanted to hurt you all those years. And...I'm sorry. I just...I'm tired of being the one that everyone hates. And I'm tired of being my Father's son. I want to be me. And want people to accept that." Hermione put her head against the door.
"I know. But I'm not ready for it. I need some time. I just need time to sort everything out. My best friends have turned against me and now my worst enemy is my counselor. What else? Is it going to start raining little pink piggies?" She heard him laugh softly through the door.
"To be honest with you, I don't know why I want to help you. I hate my Father, but everything he's taught me has just become...I don't know...instinct, I guess. It's like, automatic. I hate that, but it's true. I mean, when he died, I thought that I was going to be normal. I was going to be able to have the friends I wanted and be able to do the things I wanted, but I can't. I'm holding myself back," he heaved another heavy sigh. "And then, the moment I saw you in the graveyard, I knew..."
"WHAT?" Hermione jumped up and wrenched the door open. Draco fell backward and then scrambled to his feet. "You saw me in the cemetry?" He looked almost shocked and nodded slightly. "You were the one I heard! You were eavesdropping on me! I can't believe you! Why would you do that?" Tears filled her eyes and she ran away from him, out onto the balcony.
"Hermione! I'm sorry! I didn't know who you were! I couldn't see your face and I just had to find out who it was!" he said, following.
"You saw me in my most vunerable state! And I bet you just sat back and laughed when you saw Hermione Granger, mudblood know-it-all talking to a head stone! You don't understand anything! Everything you said last night is complete bull shit!" she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, crying again.
"No. I pitied you. I felt horrible for you. And I do understand. I doesn't matter if your a mudblood or a pureblood or a fucking alien. When someone dies, it puts a hole right in the middle of your heart. A hole as deep and empty as a bottomless pit and there is nothing you can do about it. It's a hole that can't be filled, so you're stuck with a gapping wound that doesn't heal, doesn't even bleed, just sits there mockingly. You're broken and completely eaten alive by coldness. And you want so bad to be warm and happy again. But you can't. You can't because of the fucking gapping hole in your fucking heart. Sometimes you wish that they would come back, other times you wish you wouldn't have met them that way when they died, you wouldn't be in as much pain as you are. You blood still pumps, your lungs still demand air, you go to sleep and you wake up the next day, but you feel incomplete. Like someones cut your leg off at the hip and you can no longer stand. You wish that the ground would just open and swallow you whole. You're soul has shattered and you can't put the pieces back together because some have been lost in the wreckage. Don't tell me I don't understand, Hermione, because dammit, I do! I fucking understand! But I do know something you don't. That life goes on! People go on! You can't just stop living because someone else is gone. Life doesn't work that way. You have to understand that Andrew is never coming back and there are other people on this planet that care about you and want to you to care too." Draco knelt down and grabbed her upper arms, forcing her to face him. "You have to come back to us. Andrew is gone and it's time to start thinking about life again.
"NO! I comprehend the fact that Andrew is never coming back to me! I know that! But I will not betray his memory by forgetting about him! I will not replace him! I would be a traitor to even think about leaving him." she snapped, crying hysterically and struggling against his strong hands. Draco shook her hard and she stilled.
"I'm not telling you to forget or replace Andrew! Do you think it would make him happy to see you suffering like this in oder to keep his memory alive? Do you think it would make him happy to see you throw your life away to try and keep someone who's already passed on into the afterlife in this world? Personally, it would hurt me more to see that than to see the person I love with someone else. Andrew wants you happy, Hermione! He wants you to be happy and that means doing the things you love and being with the people you love!" Hermione stared into Draco's eyes and found every bit of them sincere. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder.
"I just miss him so badly. I don't want to forget him, Draco! I don't want his memory to leave me! I don't want to have to struggle to remember his face. I don't want to have to strain to hear his voice or feel his touch. I want to remember all the things we did and all the time we had together. I'm afraid being with someone else will make me forget," she whispered. Draco rubbed her back and pulled her into his lap.
"Hermione, it will fade. You can't remember everything. But he'll always have touched your life. He's left an imprint on you and he's helped you become a better person. If you ever come across a time where you want to remember something, just look at yourself. Every action, every passion you shared, every touch and word, they are all there. They've all left their mark on you." He laid his head on top of hers and stroked her hair.
Then she uttered the words he'd been waiting for, but never thought would come in such a short time.
"I don't want to be alone anymore."