Metamorphosis:A Story of Maturing
Chapter Nine:
In Which there are Several Kisses and
Ron and Harry Realize that Next Year May, In Fact, Be
Much, Much,More Painful than Previously Anticipated.
And, this whole bloody thing gets wrapped up and ENDS.
Hermione didn't know why there was such a commotion downstairs. She had been comfortably resting upstairs before dinner, thinking longingly about the soft touch of a blond boy when there came a loud shout and an alarmed, yet all too familiar shriek. So many years of being Harry Potter's friend, and in the same tower as the twins had honed her reactions: within seconds she was standing at the top of the stairs, in absolute shock over the view before her.
Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were SMILING at eachother, and Ginny was in the corner looking happy yet bewildered. Ron and Neville were standing in the hallway to the kitchens, looking boggled, and in the centre of the room was a large picture frame, the canvas stretched across torn across with four horizontal tears.
Her eyes flew to the wall where there was a pale spot surrounded by decades of grime. She blinked disbelievingly at the implications as, for the first time in their lives, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy gave each other a high-five. Ron came out of his stupor, saying,
"Bugger…Bloody Hell…" along with a few more creative curses starting with a B. Neville seemed to be torn between shouting for joy and going to the bathroom and Harry and Ginny were busy with their own personal type of celebration. Draco looked up the stairs into her eyes and smirked.
"She's never calling you names again." No one except for Hermione seemed to hear him, and she flew down the stairs and hugged him round the middle. Somehow she knew he wasn't only talking about the portrait.
His cautious arms eventually came back around to hold her shoulders, and he sighed.
The moment was over all too soon with the indignant shout of Remus Lupin, who, upon arriving in his front hall, immediately noticed the change in décor.
"Who did it?"
"We did, Remus." Harry pulled himself with a squelching sound from Ginny's embrace and turned to face the werewolf. "Draco and I did. Well, mostly him."
For a moment, Remus looked as if he were about to cry. Then, suddenly, Draco and Harry found themselves being cuffed and hugged and hair-tousled, hearing words of thanks and praise. Draco was feeling much overcome. No one ever had said so many nice things to him in a row ever.
Awkwardly pulling himself out of everyone's reach, he shittered off a distracted, "Itwasnothingforgedaboudit" and scampered up the stairs.
Hermione followed.
Remus leaned his head against the wall where the damned portrait had hung. Sirius would have been so pleased to see it gone.
"Hey, Remus?"
"Yes Harry?"
"Draco actually did it mostly. I just helped him say the spell. And we used Ginny's pensieve."
"It doesn't matter. Thanks to everyone, the witch is gone. I wish Sirius could have seen it."
Harry smiled. "Me too," and wrapped his arms around Ginny
Draco couldn't really think. This was very, very strange to him, and WHAT were all those people SAYING. He was having trouble remembering why he had wanted to be so nice. People could be awfully exuberant. It was just a painting.
He threw himself on his unmade bed and put his head in his pillow. There was a creak from the door; he didn't care to look. Footsteps and he pretended they weren't there.
He brought his arms around his ears so he couldn't hear the complaints of a second body weight on the side of the mattress, but he was all to aware of Her presence.
They sat in silence a moment, and tentatively, lightly, there was a soft touch on the back of his head. Hermione played with his soft hair for a minute, not saying a word. She bent and kissed the name of his neck,
"Why did you do it?" She whispered. Draco felt like sobbing.
"I don't know." His head buried even further in the pillow.
"Draco." Her voice was right outside of his ear, soft and silky.
"I didn't want her to ever make you cry again." The words erupted out of his mouth like one of those Christmas Popper things with the hats. Hermione didn't seem surprised.
"Thank you." They were both whispering. She lightly caressed the back of his ear, sending shivers down his spine.
The mattress heaved again and she stood up, ready to leave. With speed and a sixth sense he didn't know he had, Draco's hand shot out from around his head, grabbing her wrist.
"Don't even think of leaving, Granger."
Hermione whipped back to face him, a wicked look in her eye. "I wasn't really planning on it, Malfoy."
Draco pulled her down to his level, touching the side of her face almost reverently. Leaning forward, silently asking permission, he paused, their noses barely touching.
They kissed. Leaning into each other their hand began to wander and their breathing grew ragged. Hearts sped up and he tangled his hands in her hair.
"I don't know why, I don't know why…" he muttered.
"Sometimes, sometimes you don't have to." She replied.
And they kissed again.
Kreacher found his way down the creaky stairs after everyone had gone. He had his suspicions of what had transpired, though his black heart prayed they were unfounded. He silently crept to the wall where his mistress had hung, and, pulling back the curtains, gasping in horror when he saw she wasn't there.
Turning, dispared beyond belief, he tripped over a wooden edge he hadn't seen before. Kneeling beside it, he flipped the torn asunder portrait over; he let out a piteous wail. His beautiful mistress had four slashes through her noble face; this portrait was lost beyond repair.
Kreacher knelt and wept savagely.
Several days later, when Hermione and Draco decided to go public (meaning their classmates) about the exact nature of the relationship, no one seemed too surprised.
It seemed Harry had understood the ulterior motives of his portrait actions, and had taken it upon himself to get Ron and Neville warmed up to the idea. It hadn't been easy, but when Draco flatly told them to suck it up because it didn't really concern them, they seemed to be alright with it.
Now they were sitting around the fire in the living room of Grimmauld Place, Ginny in Harry's lap, Draco and Hermione on the couch, and Ron and Neville lain haphazardly around the floor. Everyone had their OWL results and mostly everyone seemed pleased. Neville was quite nervous about his grandmother's reaction to his potions mark, but he wasn't even close to surprised.
Ron was whining about having to take NEWT potions with Snape. "Another few years with the git, I don't know how we'll stand it."
"Ron, you should be respectful of your professors," Hermione said distractedly.
"Ah, well, anyway. I don't suppose it will be so bad this year, as in that Malfoy Git won't be so nasty, eh?" said Ginny, despite his half hearted rebuttals.
"We never really talked about that, did we? Well, here, Draco Malfoy, I hereby apologize for any unnecessary pranks and/or insults I sent your way. That doesn't cover all of them, but a few may have been my fault. The most recent may have been that incident on the steps? That one on the train was definitely your fault. "
"And I, too, Harry, apologize for being a git in all respects toward you and your Gryffindor sidekicks. Ow!" Hermione elbowed him in the stomach. "And what on the train? I wasn't even on the train this year."
"Yes you were," said Ron, "I remember."
"No. Professor Snape offered to take my place in Polyjuice and all so my father wouldn't end up killing me. I took a Portkey here."
"That's true, Ron, I saw in the pensieve." Ron was looking sicker by the minute.
"Professor Snape, d'you say? Oh, bloody hell…"
"What is it?" Harry asked.
"Are you saying you don't remember the train ride? Malfoy and his goons tried to ambush us and we hexed them into oblivion, since the entire D.A. was there." Harry was looking quite pale too.
"And to think, we have all next year in NEWT potions with Snape."
"Oh, Bloody Hell!"
Draco just laughed, holding Hermione tight in his arms. "Serves you right, I suppose." And he just kept smiling.
Fin.
AN: Ok, ok, it's done. And no, I don' think there will be a sequel. I'm sorry for how badly this whole thing turned out, I'm not very talented at writing fluffy scenes; there weren't nearly enough of them. And also it feels like I just remembered I had a first half of a story. And there wasn't really enough drama on the whole killing your father even if by accident thing. I apologize.
Maybe the next fic I do will be decent. I hope you liked reading this one, even if I don't really think it's up to snuff with some of my reviewers' work.
Which brings me to my next point: THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR AMAZING REVIEWS. HONESTLY, YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST, AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'D DO WITHOUT YOU. : )
School's starting soon and I have to face the music, as it be. If this year goes well, who knows, maybe I'll start writing during my free time. (HA free time; sophomore year, that's funny! freaks out right now)
Please leave one more goodbye review. And thanks for reading. ; )