Disclamer: I do not own any character in this story, all of these belongs to j.k. Rowling.
"Gibberish" Hermione Granger said somewhat nervously looking around for any unwanted spectator. A moment barely passed when she found herself in a fair-sized room consisting of cold gray walls which would be completely bare if not for the portrait of sceneries hanged in it. There were no creatures in the sketches. The room was exclusively for two.
A sofa and a few armchairs completed the melancholic scene before her. She looked around and was not surprised to see another student there. One with pale-blonde hair and whose gray eyes were looking at some random point near her.
No, she suddenly realized, he was looking at her but it was like seeing through her, as though she's not there at all, like looking through a glass, and, for a moment, Hermione felt like one. So vulnerable, so fragile, so, so…transparent.
She fought to maintain her composure, to remain neutral-at least for now-and walked over to the sofa beside him. Beside Draco Malfoy.
"So this is it, huh?" Her voice cut through the still but tensed silence.
"Yeah I think it is." He replied in a tone that, to another person, would have been perfectly neutral, but not to her, she could make out the trace of pain, sadness and despair there, the exact things he was feeling, and was glad she could and well, how could she have not done? She heard it one too many times for that.
"I hate him. I hate him so much and he's supposed to be my father!" Draco said, his voice filled with pain and anger for his father and himself for putting up with this.
"I know, I perfectly understand you and you have every right to feel that way." Hermione replied gently as she took the letter clutched tightly in Draco's shaking fist. She scanned the letter and, after a moment, looked up at Draco who was watching her.
"How can he be my father?", he asked.
"Not all of the around you are worth caring for, Draco, you have to know that "
"Easy for you to say", he responded, bitterly. "You don't know how it-"
"Of course I do and I care.", she said with all honesty.
And he believed her, because it was the truth. She cared.
Both of them were lost in their own thoughts, not daring to voice what was going through their minds, too afraid to speak of the truth both of them were not ready to face, and after all, they knew what was going on each other's minds.
The moment of goodbye.
They were both distracted by the sudden change in the color of the walls. It was now blue.
The room's walls were designed to reflect the occupants' emotions. And blue means sadness and despair.
"I knew you'd miss me", he said with his usual mocking tone and she couldn't help but smile at that. Typical Draco.
"Oh come on, you know you would miss me.", she said imitating his tone of voice.
"Yeah, I think I would."
She looked up at that and their eyes met, cold gray and warm brown, and that moment lasted longer, much, much longer, than it actually did. Their gazes said everything and that's when she realized that this was their last time together, this was probably the last time she would lay her eyes on him. She knew it, all right. How could she not? This was their last day at school but it had not sunk in, not until this moment how much she would miss him, how much she would lose. Now, looking in his eyes, she knew she would lose him forever and it was unbearable.
Unable to restrain herself any longer, she hugged him, arms wrapping around every bit of him she could muster to take hold of. She hugged him as if she would never hold him again and then she remembered, she had. She'd never be able to touch him again. Never.
She felt his arms wrap around her in return. She leant her head on his chest fighting the tears that were threatening to overcome her.
"Hermione?"
"Hmm?"
"I love you."
She couldn't fight it anymore. She cried. She cried like she never had before but fought to say the words she knew she should now, before it's too late.
"I love you too, Draco, I love you too." She said those words with every emotion she was feeling, love, pain, longing…everything.
She hugged him again, knowing it would be their last, fearing there was no hope, dreading the end of it. She wanted this moment to be frozen in time forever, she in his arms and he in her touch, her warmth, but she knew it would never happen, however hard she wished for it to. There would be no next time and there would be the end, the end she would not want to face but would have to, having no choice.
It's painful to think of the irony. How Fickle Fate is. Almost a year ago, she wished never to be in his presence and was assigned the same common room as his. Now, she would do everything to be with him and it was impossible. They have to part. They have to. It's just that, it's, it's…
"It's unfair", she said in a whisper that was barely audible.
"I know", he answered. "but you once told me the greatest things are, Hermione."
"You are willing to give me up?"
"No, of course I'm not"
"Then…"
"What I'm trying to say is that we just have to accept it. I know it's hard, I feel it too. You cannot possibly imagine how I feel. Letting go of the only good thing in my damned life? it's hard and that coming from the most arrogant, the most big-headed and proudest person you could ever know"-she smile at that, it was her who said it once during their first week together-"that is definitely saying something." He finished with a smile not quite his usual standard despite his attempt of a joke.
'But it's life. it's unfair and I accept it as much as I don't want to lose you, it's the only choice we've got and we've got to take it. I just want you to know that if I were given a choice between this, loving and losing, and not ever knowing, let alone loving, you at all, I'd choose this without a second thought because loving made me complete, whole. And even if you and I are separated, I'll never lose you, not to the truest sense of the word, because I'll always love you, and you'll never leave me and I will never depart from you. We'll part but I am happy to know I loved and was loved. You were the best thing that happened in my life, Hermione." He finished looking at her deeply, sincerely, openly, without his guard, with all his love.
She nodded, understanding and said, "Can I hug you for the last time?"
And in that tight embrace and the swift, last and sweetest kiss they shared went everything they could not say, that words can never, ever describe, the love received, the love given and eventually shared, the bittersweet urgency to impart and gain and the hopeless desire to make this last, in their memories, in their hearts, in their minds. Forever retained, never to be forgotten.
And when it ended, all of it did. He was gone, but not fully, she knew. His spirit is there with her and hers, with him.
She brushed her tears away but never the love, and the pain of loss, not yet. Eventually, perhaps, but not now. Later, she was certain, she, just like Draco, will accept the cruelty of chance, the fickleness of Fate and the unfairness of life in deciding that some things could never be.