Have you ever been in love? I was, twice. The first time, it was tainted and cynical and bloody, it ended fast and hard. It ended with a flick of a wand and a betrayal. The second time, it was slow and sure and sweet as sugar. The second time, I learned.
If you really love someone, you will do anything for them. And what I did was give up my past to find a future with the one person I could really care about. Six months ago, I cut all ties with my family, and killed my own father. Six months ago, I left Pansy for the last time.
Did I feel guilt? A little. But I was in love and stupid, I was also long beyond what Pansy and I had had for so much of our childhoods. She and I had always been more about what was available than what was wanted. Pansy had been what my parents wanted for me, not who I wanted for myself. But a part of me missed her, certainly, a part of me still wanted to be who I had been when I loved her.
Pansy had a brilliant mind for codes, and while we were in primary school together, she used to create them and have our tutors unravel them for her. She had one particular favorite that she developed over the years that I eventually learned, and that we would write each other in. It was mostly just the inane little things that a couple would say to each other at fifteen, 'I adore you, darling' and so on. But, over the years as the things I said got slowly more subversive, and the things she said more risqué, we took to writing each other almost solely in code. It became complex over time, both of us adding our own touches as it suited us.
In short, it became a language. And only Pansy and could speak it. After my defection, I assumed I would never see it or her again. I hardly thought about it, really. Being in Godric's Hollow for weeks at a time, I could focus on Hermione. Over the past six months, I've made more progress than anyone else has in a year and a half with her. It's the sort of thing that makes you believe in true love. And I do. That's the part that's so wrong about us, if Hermione has done one thing for me, it's that she's taught me what to believe in.
And I believe in her, which is what I think I brought to her. Potter and the rest gave up on her after a few months, but I never did believe there was no hope for her. Potter is a hero, no question, he always has been, and I've always known that, but he's always fighting for the greater good. That's why Severus Snape has his sons and his fiancée, because Harry must always be the hero. But I have never been the hero; I am the soldier, the warrior, fighting not for ideals, but for people. I fought for Hermione.
"Draco?" Hermione knocked on my door quietly, like she always does. I leave it open when I'm decent, and she knows she's welcome, but either manners or nerves keep her knocking.
"Come
in, Granger," I said, turning around from my desk where I'd been
working on the message-
I'm not as fluent as I once was. Well,
I am if I'm speaking it, but not writing. It's one of those funny
distinctions. "I should have this in just a minute, if you'd like
to hang around."
"If that's alright," she said, looking at the couch, a leather one I'd bought a few months earlier when it became clear I wouldn't be able to return to Malfoy Manor, since the bloody Ministry's decided it might give me the wrong sort of influence. Or something along those lines, Hermione understands it. I honestly can't be bothered. I like it here.
"Sit down," I said, gesturing loosely in the direction of the couch. "I've only got four words left. It's ingenious, really, the way she's constructed this."
"Oh?"
"Pansy could have rivaled you if she'd cared too," I told her, grinning.
"I somehow doubt that."
"Would I lie to you?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow. She just smiled back at me. So, her mood was established, like it always needs to be when we speak. She was a little playful, roughened for the situation and happy with me. We fell into comfortable silence. Hermione picked my book up from the bedside table, beginning to flick through it, occasionally letting out a laugh at the notes I'd made in the margins- it's a Arithmancy text and I hadn't agreed with everything set out by the author.
"Hermione?" I said, three minutes or so later, a little shrill, staring at what was set out before me in my own handwriting. "Get Potter. Tell him we're leaving. Now."
You have until sunset tomorrow. You know what you have to do. And you know that if you come with him, if anyone comes with him. His sons will die, and there's another innocent here. Are you going to come meet your daughter, Draco?