I saw her every day. We shared a common room, and a bathroom, yet we had worked out a routine so we rarely spoke. Even as we did out Head duties we only talked when it was necessary. After I had made my confession to her, she had nothing to say to me. No more snide comments were made, no more dirty looks, now just complete emptiness was between us. I wished it wasn't.
I'll never understand how I came to love her so, but I did. I knew it was wrong, and I knew that she would never return those same feelings and cherish me as I had cherished her, and I respected that. Why would she after all these years of me torturing her, just begin to fall in love with me? Why would she even give me a second glance? She wouldn't, and I knew there was no use in loving her, yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop.
It was one day last fall that I realized it. I was walking through Hogsmeade, in search of Pansy Parkinson, when I saw her, bundled up in a sweater and scarf, because it was quite a chilly day, and rushing through the crowd of people, her face flushed, seemingly from the cold air.
Her hair was blowing recklessly behind her, curls bouncing off of her shoulders and back, and her deep brown eyes were sparkling carelessly. I couldn't look away from her. Her cheeks so rosy, with beautiful pink lips, and such wonderful, wonderful eyes, it seemed impossible for me to turn my attention towards anything else.
Just than she rushed past me, or into me as you might say, seeing as the books and bags she had been carrying were knocked out of her hands and onto the cool gravel beneath us. Without even thinking about it, I bent over and helped gathering her books for her, placing them in a neat pile, and handing them to her. We both stood up, and I gave her, her books.
The way that she had looked at me than made my breath catch in my throat. She looked up at me, and smiled. It was a sincere smile, and enough to make me tremble. I first looked into her deep eyes, and saw that even they too seemed to be smiling, than down to her petite button nose, and to her beautiful lips. They curved upwards a little more than slightly, and I couldn't believe just how beautiful she was. Not a word was said as she scurried off, but I knew from that moment, that I loved her.
You, probably don't understand it, I can't expect you to. She definitely doesn't understand it, I can tell when I look at the confusion in her eyes each time they meet. And I, myself, certainly do not understand it. How can one look at her make me fall in love with her?
After 6 years of knowing her, I had never come to like her, be friends with her, or even civil in any fashion. Instead I had been rude, and acted like a git because I felt that she was lower than me, that because she was a muggle born she was not worth my time. I see things so differently now on this seventh year of knowing her.
It was in December that I told her how I felt. I had come in through the portrait door leading to our common room, and saw her sitting on the sofa in front of the fire, reading some muggle novel. After much thought, I finally decided upon sitting down next to her.
For a moment she didn't move or even turn her head, she just continued to read, but after turning a page of her book, she turned and saw me, jumping slightly at the knowledge that I was there. She decided upon ignoring me, and just turned her eyes towards her book once again.
Realizing that she wasn't going to make this easy for me, I shifted slightly, turning to face her.
"Umm Hermione, can I talk to you for a moment?" I said quietly.
It was the first time that I had ever spoken her first name, and apparently she noticed it to, for instead of looking at me with the usual glare or anger in her eyes, she looked at me with slight confusion, but her eyes were soft, sensing I wasn't going to be rude.
"Sure," she said, marking her book with a bookmark, and closing it, turning to face me.
"Well, I really don't know how to say this... and I know that you won't believe it... but Hermione Granger… I think that I have fallen in love with you."
I don't know how I managed to get the words out, but I sort of choked up just than, and didn't know what else to say. For a few moments I just looked into her eyes, and didn't saw a word. Neither did she, though, she just gazed at me intently, waiting for an explanation, waiting for me to say more.
After clearing my throat a few times, I finally said in a barely audible voice, "It was the day in Hogsmeade…when you dropped your books. I don't understand it myself, it doesn't make any sense I know, it's just… when you smiled at me after I had handed you back your books, I felt something inside of me that I had never felt before. The way that you had looked that day, and the way that you continue to look each day, just so beautiful, and I wish every day that you would smile at me again, like you had that day. I don't know why Hermione, but…" I paused for a moment as my throat seemed to close up, and finally, I said "but…I love you."
I didn't know what I had expected from this encounter. I knew that she didn't love me, and I doubt that I was looking for some sort of miracle that she would say that she loved me too, yet I had confessed my deepest secret to her, my most sincere thought, the only true feeling I could ever remember feeling towards anyone or anything.
For what felt like an eternity, we said nothing. She wouldn't even look at me, and gazed into the fire, the flames dancing in her eyes. Once again I felt mesmerized by her beauty. I looked her up and down, trying to keep every feature of her body locked up in my mind forever. I would never forget her, I thought to myself.
Finally, her eyes met mine again, and I had a hard time getting a grip on myself, and on the reality that she wasn't mine to take in my arms, and to love and hold, that she was no one's, and she didn't return my feelings of love and affection.
"I, I don't know what to say," she started, her voice soft and angelic. "I just need time to think…about all of this, it's just…unbelievable really…"
I understood what she was trying to say, and as her eyes returned once again to the dancing flames in the fireplace, I nodded my head, and left towards my staircase leading to my bedchamber.
Now it is mid February, and it was just a few days ago when it happened. I am still in awe at it all.
I was lying in bed in the middle of the night, thinking about her, of course, when my door opened, and a faint light crept in.
"Draco?.." I heard it, her voice. Abruptly I sat up, wondering what she could want at this hour. It had to have been at least 2 o'clock in the morning, and I had figured she would have been in bed long ago.
"Yeah?..." I said, watching her come slowly towards my bed. She sat on my bed next to me, and suddenly, she had buried her face deep in my bare chest, and had her arms wrapped around me tight, as if she would die if she ever let go. I held her close to me, as I heard her weeping quietly, and it broke my heart to think that something had saddened her.
Slowly, I laid down, her laying next to me, still holding to me dearly, and I softly stroked her hair, and told her everything would be all right. Soon, her cries died down, and I could here her breathing deeply as she began to fall into a peaceful sleep.
I held her tightly that night, for I had, and still have, no clue if she will ever return to me. I don't know much about anything right now. I know that I love her, and will continue to love her despite what she feels for me, I know that having her there with me that night was the best of my life, and I had never slept more soundly, with sweeter dreams. But I also know, that I have never been no more hurt, than I had the following morning, when I woke up, realizing that she had left me. Had it been a dream?
Confusion is the one feeling that remains constant in my life at the present time, and I am unsure of whether this will ever change. All I seem to know, is that I will forever love her, and that night, she came to me, and whether she knew it or not, whether it had been real or not, that night, had been the happiest one, of my entire life.
This was my first one shot... and I just thought of it and decided to write it on the spur of the moment before I forgot. Hope you enjoyed it!
Love Always,
Carly Jayne.