Disclaimer: I sollemenly swear that I am up to no good... as I will steal it! Well perhaps not...
A/N: I still need ideas to make them closer! C'mon people I want to make them closer before Draco finds out that Mia is Hermione and I already know how that is going to happen, but I need your help! Give me ideas for ways for them to get closer.
Without a Home: Chapter 13
"Mia… I didn't know," Draco said as he didn't really know what else to say.
Hermione had just finished her story. Well her 'edited' story. She wasn't about to tell him that she was Hermione Granger and that her parents had owned a dentist clinic. So she had told him a story that was similar to the truth. After all she had to pretend to be Mia the homeless squib.
"It is okay. You were never expected to know that," She replied.
He reached his hand up and with his thumb he wiped away the tears from her cheeks. His thumb lightly caressing his face wiping away every tear she shed. She smiled slightly at this. To know that he may not care that much, but he did care a little. That someone cared for her. Even if it was the slightest amount of caring someone still did. They didn't know her real name or even a lot about her, but they did care and that was all that mattered to Hermione right now.
He wished that he could take away her pain. No one deserved pain and he knew it. He had lived a life full of pain. Being told what to do and having to be his father's perfect son. He still didn't really like muggleborns, but well he hadn't really decided what to think of them. I mean he was choosing between what he had always known in his head and his heart and what his head and his heart were telling him. He just didn't know anymore.
He didn't understand much anymore. His decisions and opinions were changing fast. He really didn't know much about what he believed in or what his dreams were. He really didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He wished he had as many goals, dreams, and wishes as the average person, but he really didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to have something to focus his life and his opinions on. He wanted a life.
Now no one was telling him what to do. He had to decide things for himself. He had to decide what he liked and what he didn't. He had to choose what he thought was right and what wasn't.
He could tell Mia wasn't all that different from him. Both had lives of pain. Both had lost their parents. Both were unsure of what their future would be or where they wanted to go in their lives.
Life is made up of many different roads and paths you can take, but they all eventually lead you to a similar point. Death. The difference is how you die. Depending on what paths you take may cause a certain type of death. Yet Draco and Hermione were both not planning what paths to take. Not planning how their lives should be or would be.
Most would probably think that Draco was not the least bit sad when his parents died. Well it is true in a sense. He did not feel sad for them as his mother had ignored him all of his life and left him to be raised by the house elves. His father told him who to be and had tortured him on numerous occasions. He did kind of love his mother though because she was the closest thing to a parent he had. The house elves were not parents they only took care of them because it was their job. They didn't really care.
Yet he still felt a strange emptiness. An emptiness that would not fill. He hoped that perhaps one day it would go away, but then again it might not. It might never go away and he might be left with it forever.
He felt sorry for her because if anyone had lost someone that loved them and cared for them. They really did not deserve to lose them. For people really did need other people to be happy and Draco knew that. He had been lonely all of his life and he just wished he would be able to know what it felt like to be truly loved.
"Draco what happened to your parents?" Hermione asked immediately regretting asking the question knowing it might anger him.
Draco looked away at her and began to play with an invisible thread on his pants. He was debating about something in his head she could tell. He might actually tell her!
'Should I tell her?' A part of Draco asked.
'No she will just tell the reporters to earn money,' the other part of him said.
'But she wouldn't be like that. I can tell and besides she isn't going to give up a home like this so easily,' He told himself.
'Yeah right. You can't trust anyone and you know it,' the other side of him argued back.
'I am going to tell her now shut up,' He thought back with anger.
'You are such an idiot. You are going to regret this and don't you cry when I tell you I told you so'
Still looking down and focusing on the ground he opened his mouth. Then Draco began to tell a story that he didn't tell the reporters or anyone else.
"Father had come home drunk one night. Very drunk and he went crazy when my mother told him not to drink anymore that night. He had gotten up from his chair and walked over to her. His eyes filled with anger and he slapped her. She gasped and clutched his cheek. He asked her if it had hurt and he began to slap her harder. Then he had grabbed a knife from hi… his pocket an… and h… he…" Draco took a shaky breath.
Hermione put a hand on his back. She knew he wouldn't cry and she knew he wouldn't let that much emotion out. He hid his emotions and there was no way she would see past his wall. No one ever did.
Draco swallowed his shaky breaths, his nervousness, and his want to cry all in one gulp. He used an emotionless voice to finish his story. Pretending he did not care. Pretending that it did not matter, but he knew and she knew that it was all just a lie. His life was a lie that he lived everyday of his life.
"He stabbed her to death and then drank himself to death. I saw him consume bottle after bottle of alcohol…" He paused a glazy look going over his eyes as though he was in deep thought.
He didn't tell her the details. The horrible stench of blood and alcohol in the air that was sickening in its own way. The memories of his mother getting paler and paler were almost too much to bear. He had been too much of a coward to stop his father. He wished that he hadn't been a coward. He could have saved his mother's life. It was his fault she died and he just should have been there to protect her.
He had just watched in the shadows as his father drank and his mother died. Biggest mistake of his life was being a coward at that moment. Why couldn't he just change it all? Fix that one major mistake in his life. He wanted to take it back.
He should have died not her. He should have died for being the bloody coward that he was.