Disclaimer: I own nothing, just the plot.
Chapter Six
His legs felt like lead as he forced them to travel through the halls of the school. It was incomprehensible to him how the past events were being played out before his eyes like a movie. Like a nightmare.
"There was a family"He could see himself. He could see the Dark Lord. He could hear the voices.
"A family of three that he was to take care of. I left the job to him for it seemed petty and contemptible for my favorite follower."
The words were crisp, clear, like this out of body experience was happening now instead of in the past. Draco trailed his fingers along the brick walls of the corridor to balance himself, feeling the urge to be sick and pass out and any given time. Had somebody cast a spell on him without his knowledge?
There was Voldemort, right in front of him, of both of him, recalling the death of his father. It was inconceivable.
"Apparently I underestimated his capabilities. It was a task to arduous for him. One person survived, and I expect you to change that."
As his eyes continued to play tricks on him, Draco came to his final destination. His stomach churned violently as he slowly pulled his wand from his robes and traveled the hall to the library. His task was pretty simple: get in, kill, flee Hogwarts, and report back to the Dark Lord. All preparations after that had been taken care of. He had until midnight to get the job done. His invisibility cloak billowed beneath his silent strides.
The scene continued to unfold until it came to the worse part. The part that almost made him lose it.
"And the name of this escapee?"
"Hermione Granger."
Draco rounded the corner of one of the bookshelves. The stone cold features of his face softened in the dim light of the room as his eyes settled upon his victim. No, he could not call her his victim.
She sat alone in the far corner of the library. Book after book stacked its way on the table in front of her as she sat with one leg tucked under her body. Her hair was ten shades of a mess, pulled back in what could only be described as a poor attempt of a pony tail tied earlier that morning and untouched since.
Hermione had done him a favor really, killing his father. She had set him free without even realizing it.
He would have given anything to have been there, to have seen the look on his face when he knew that he had been defeated by a Mudblood. That would have been the greatest satisfaction of all.
Hermione unglued her eyes from the book she was reading and sat back, stretching her arms and trying to gain life in her tired, aching body. Draco sighed, leaning slightly against the bookshelf.
"I can't…" he whispered to himself.
Turning away from the golden sight he could already feel himself slipping into his own death sentence as he walked back to his room. His slid his wand back into his robes and could already feel the first step towards digging his own grave.
She couldn't sleep; she never could. However, the sleepless states of insomnia were starting to get to her, and seemed to cause more and more trouble on every other aspect of her life. Laying on her back, Hermione stared up towards the ceiling, thinking it would somehow produce a sleeping potion out of thin air. After several minutes and no apparent success, she groaned and rolled out of bed.
Disheveled and frustrated, she trudged her way out of the room. A warm fire was lit in the common room, creating a soft glow not unpleasant to her tired eyes. Sitting in a cushioned chair in front of it, Draco basked in the warmth the flames emitted. His complexion wasn't as pale and seemed more inviting in this light. Hints of red and orange flickered across his masculine structures, making him all the more beautiful.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked, not giving a single glance in Hermione's direction. At first she hadn't realized he had spoken to her. Looking around the room, she blushed when she came to the conclusion that she was the only one there, and therefore the only one meant to have received the question.
"No," she stated simply, slowly inching her way to the other cushioned chair in front of the fire.
"Do you realize how late it is?" Draco asked. Hermione paused in place. She couldn't help but feel a bit baffled at the question. Actually, it wasn't quite so much the question as it was the way it was asked. She detected a bit of—what was it?—thoughtfulness in its depths that she didn't think could come from one such as Draco Malfoy.
"I don't see you asleep," she replied with a glimmer of annoyance. Draco smirked to himself and chuckled softly.
"I don't sleep," he said offhandedly, as if sleep was something only normal people did. Hermione thought nothing of the statement and continued her path to the chair once more. She sat down quietly, contemplating what to say next. Looking towards the fireplace, she noticed the flames slowing starting to dissipate.
"The fire's dieing," she commented to herself.
"Fire's an odd thing," Draco said, still not looking at her. "It's one of natures most beautiful forms of disaster. It's brilliant how something so spectacular and captivating can kill like it's nothing. Something so strong that it can't be controlled, yet it can die like everything else in the world."
Hermione had pondered in the past about the essence of fire. However, she never thought twice about the last statement Draco made. It can die like everything else in the world. The way he said it made it seem like he was slandering fire as much as he was admiring it. Like he found death repulsive, but worshipped it all the same.
"I jumped once," he said. Hermione looked at him and said nothing. As much as she understood the statement, she couldn't help but feel the slightest bit of confusion. Before she could ask, though, Draco already had the answer.
"Off a cliff," he continued. "The water beckoned me, so I jumped."
"Why?" Hermione asked. Completely ignoring her question, Draco chuckled again, and a fire of his own lit in his eyes.
"Funny thing is…" he whispered, turning to face Hermione for the first time, not only that night, but for the first time ever. "I didn't expect to live."
Silence filled the room with a sudden vast coldness not even the fire could break through. A chill ran down Hermione's spine and she could feel the tiny goose bumps form on her arms.
"I'm sorry," she said softly.
"For what?" Draco asked.
"That it didn't work."
She didn't know why she said it. It made sense though. She had tried the game of suicide multiple times herself. It was understandable how disappointing it could be to face something like that and come out alive.
Draco stood up out of his chair and leaned in on Hermione, placing his hands on the armrest on either side of her. Hermione found herself frozen in place, almost afraid she had said the wrong thing to upset him. Draco swiftly closed in the space between them until his face hovered centimeters away from hers.
"I'm not," he whispered almost inaudibly. "I'm not sorry that it didn't work. I'm not sorry I lived. Not now…"
Draco kissed her. It was so soft and gentle you could have mistaken it from even happening in the first place. The fire crackled next to them, humming a sweet sound of repressed emotions being let loose. Draco's hand traveled up and cupped Hermione's face, continuing the kiss ever so slightly.
Before she knew it, he was gone. The empty space that was once him hit her like icy knives. Her lips seemed to have gone numb from the coldness of his absence, making her wish he could be there once again to warm them up with his kiss.
Hermione opened her eyes to see his shadow creep into his room before the door closed and a soft click was heard.
Slowly, the tiniest of smiles played its way across her face and her eyes lit up almost unnoticeably. Raising up from her chair, Hermione walked back into her room. Slipping into her bed for the second time that night, she fell fast into the deep slumber she had been craving for.
Many times people fool themselves into believing that they're something they're not. There's a fine line between denial and ignorance, and though crossing it may seem harmless, in the end one must come to terms with which one they chose.
Draco chose to live. Though he had jumped off that cliff he knew the only way he survived was out of sheer will to live. He didn't know why he wanted life, and that to him was the beauty of it. When he was younger he used to love putting muggle jigsaw puzzles together. There were no specific instructions, no way of telling which piece went where. It all came down to him and his decisions. That fascinated him. Draco loved making decisions. He loved putting the pieces together.
Life was one giant puzzle with no instructions. Draco wasn't much of a believer in fate, but he knew every decision he made changed what final destiny he might have, whether he believed in it or not. His decision to jump was a way of telling him that something was wrong. Sounds stupid, right? Something he could surely have known without facing the bitter cold water and the torment it brought.
Jumping also had another advantage. It showed him that his will to survive was a lot stronger than he thought. Where Draco only saw death as the final resolution to everything, he never stopped to consider life as an alternative. Because he lived, he could now see that.
Kissing Hermione was another story though. While he could somewhat grasp the outcomes of his previous actions, engaging in an intimate gesture such as this completely baffled him. Wasn't he supposed to hate her? Weren't they supposed to be enemies? Didn't Voldemort instruct him to kill her?
Maybe that was it! Maybe that's what it all boiled down to; being fooled into a life you don't want. Draco never chose to hate Hermione. He had said things in the past as consequence to his upbringing. He said and did what he thought was appropriate for his background. He never wanted to be enemies, it just seemed like the natural thing for the two of them to be. Hermione was a muggle-born, contamination to the wizard world. Draco was pure-blood, more sophisticated and superior to the likes of her. Or was he?
Thinking back in the strands of time only proved to show Draco how truly wrong he used to be. If anything he was the filthy one, contaminating Hermione's rare beauty will his evil hatred. She was always strong, standing up to him when everyone else was too intimidated. She always gave her two cents, whether he liked it or not. She was the more sophisticated one, having more grace and poise with the way she handled situations than Draco could ever imagine.
She could teach him. Draco laughed at the thought. It was nonsense, and yet it was perfectly clear. Hermione could show him things he never would have given a double take to. Why not? He had nothing left to lose.
Draco had long given up his dream of being a Malfoy. He didn't want to do his father's bidding any more. It was wearing him down to nothing and that was his reason to take his own life.
Draco wasn't weak. Had he been weak, he would not have come out of that water with his heart still beating. Had he been weak, he would not be taking this new life he created for himself and forming into something he wanted to keep.
He wouldn't screw up this time. He wouldn't jump again. Draco had been given a second chance and he chose to make the best of it.
Hermione was the missing puzzle piece. She could make him whole. Not in the sense of a romantic whole, but a completeness one could never fulfill on one's own. She could teach him. She could resurrect him.
Draco sighed audibly causing a head or two to look in his direction. Snapping a few glares at people sent them back to their work. Finding it impossible to focus his attention back on his assignment, he lingered his eyes over to the girl sitting a few rows in front of him.
She was beautiful. Dark, deep, and swallowed in the pitch black night of depression, but beautiful. Hermione had jumped too once, Draco almost forgot about that. However, she didn't survive the way he had. She had been pulled from the water by the hands of someone else. His hands.
Draco wouldn't go so far as to say she was weak, but she didn't have the same strength he possessed. Sighing again, he rubbed his eyes hard trying to clear the headache pounding between his temples.
Maybe Hermione wasn't the only one with something to offer.