"Good morning!" I ran up to my husband and planted a kiss on his cheek. Draco was standing in the kitchen over a cup of tea and I had just gotten home from the nursery.
"Morning, darling." He offered me a sip of his tea and I accepted it happily. "What did you get?"
"A little of everything. I honestly don't even know what's in season, but I bought everything that looked pretty: petunias, tulips, daisies, pansies."
"Merlin, woman. Perhaps I should say a prayer in case we lose one of them, eh? You do know that murder is illegal?"
I rolled my eyes and playfully punched his shoulder. "The plants will be fine, and so will you if you learn to shut your mouth. Besides, if you help me look after them they may actually stand a chance." I took another sip of his tea and kissed him. I'll be back in a bit, alright?"
"Lunch is on me," he said, and he kissed my forehead. I walked to the back door and spun around to see him settling into a chair with a book. My husband.
Outside, the hours passed quickly, and yet I still felt like I was making no progress. The sun was bright and the air was crisp, and I ached for that meditative experience that I heard so much about. Planting new life and watching it grow seemed magical, but I knew magic and it wasn't the same for me. I sat up on my knees and sighed, determined to not give up and quit lest Draco utter those hideous words: "I told you so."
But something pulled me out of my reverie quickly. There were tiny footsteps nearby that I couldn't quite place. "Draco?" I called out, though I knew it wasn't him. I stood up slowly and walked the perimeter of the house. The footsteps silenced and then I heard soft mewing. I followed the sound until I was crouched down and face to face with the sweetest, tiniest black kitten.
"Hi, handsome!" I spoke softly to the animal. "What are you doing sneaking around here?" I reached my hand out slowly for the kitten to smell. I hoped it could sense that I was not here to harm it. It backed away immediately and darted through the bushes. I sat quietly with my hand still out and sure enough a moment later she came sniffing. She came in close enough for me to grab her.
Elated, I cradled it and ran into the house. "Draco! You will not believe what just happened!" No answer. "Draco?" The house was silent. I walked through the living room and into our bedroom, but saw no sign of him. Perhaps he heard me and ran outside to check on me, but all I found outside was my haphazard garden with plants strewn about. The sun darted behind a cloud and suddenly the world was covered in gray. Maybe the kitten knew a storm was brewing in the distance.
"Draco, where are you?" I walked back a distance so I could see both sides of the house clearly. Was he hiding? I tried to silence the fear that slowly crept into my chest. Where the hell was he? "Draco?" I called out again. When I turned around I saw him standing in a black suit near the edge of the cliff.
"Honey?" I said softly but loudly enough for him to hear. I stepped closer to him when he did not respond. "Why are you in your tux?"
The closer I got, the more I noticed how empty he looked. His features were frozen, his eyes fixed on me. He took a step backwards. He was creeping closer to the edge.
"Draco, honey, what are you doing? Get away from there." He took another step and I moved closer to him with urgency, and then I saw him step into nothingness and his body fell over the cliff like a stiff board. "No!" I yelled. "No, stop!" I dropped the kitten and ran to where he once was.
"Draco!" I screamed into the air and charged forward. Shock settled over me and my legs began to shake. What the fuck just happened? I peered over the edge of the cliff and saw nothing but rocks and sand. No body. "DRACO!" I yelled. I blinked slowly, not comprehending the sight before me. My mind felt like it was moving through molasses and when I reached up to wipe my tears my hands were red. I fell backwards onto the grass, surprised to see such a stark color.
Blood was dripping from my hands and my shirt was stained scarlet. What was happening? My breathing picked up and I felt frantic. "HERMIONE!"
I whipped my head back and I saw my husband standing in the doorway to our cottage. "Hermione, what are you doing out there?" He ran to me as my sobbing grew louder and harder.
"Draco, Draco I saw—I saw you. How-how are you here? How are you here right now?" He leaned down and wrapped his arms around me tightly, but somehow I felt more afraid. "I saw you kill yourself, Draco. There was blood."
"Shhh, Hermione. You're okay, and I'm right here. Everything is alright. Everyone is safe."
"But you aren't, Draco, you aren't. I saw you!"
He slipped his hands under my body and suddenly I was no longer on the ground. I leaned my head into his chest and let the tears fall aimlessly down my face. I felt confused. Fearful. I saw my husband die and yet here he was carrying me inside the house. There was blood on my shirt, but now it was clean. Was I losing my mind? Did I make it all up?
Draco placed me gently on our bed and climbed in next to me. We lied there in near silence, my cries piercing through the entire cottage. He was next to me and I felt his arms and I felt his breath and his heart was beating against mine, and yet I still did not know what to believe.
By now, Draco and I had been meeting up frequently for casual hangs. The more we talked, the more I realized how similar we were in endless ways. The way he saw the world made my chest clutch and I wished for us to exist as living, breathing poetry. Sometimes when he spoke I found my heartbeat matching his cadence. I knew he felt it too.
One night, Draco was over and we sat on the couch, wine bottle half empty, deep in conversation about our favorite books. We were disagreeing about something, but we were both smiling. His hand touched my knee. I felt it. The spark people describe in every song I've ever heard. He felt it too. We looked at each other and froze. We wanted more, we wanted less.
He whispered my name and slid his hand up my thigh. Trails of electricity followed everywhere his hands landed. He whispered my name again, like he was testing it, testing me. And then suddenly we were kissing passionately on that pink couch. Every pore opened and swallowed him. I shivered. He held me closer. I felt tears springing to my eyes, but I didn't want to stop kissing him. He pulled back when he tasted salt and kissed my tears away.
"Are you okay?" he asked. I nodded. I couldn't speak. Words no longer existed. "Are you sure? You're crying."
I don't know what came over me at that moment. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the electricity, maybe it was everything we'd gone through, every moment of pain and grief embedded in our bones, but I felt the unrelenting urge to tell him I loved him. Instead I pulled him closer to me and we sat like that for hours. Quietly holding each other.
We'd been dating for 8 months when Draco's mother wrote Draco asking her to invite me over for dinner. He read the letter aloud and we looked at each other, eyes full of concern. I still hadn't met his parents, and quite frankly, I had no desire to.
Aside from what Draco had shown me over a year ago, the stories he'd tell me of his childhood, of the manipulation and abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his own father sickened me. According to the letter, however, Lucius was sick.
"Fuck this," Draco muttered. "Fuck this invitation, Hermione. We aren't going. Do you see how manipulative this is?" He began pacing the room.
"I do. But Draco, your father is sick. Should we go?"
Incredulity covered his face. "Are you barmy? You actually think he's sick? This is absolutely mother's way of tricking me into visiting. We aren't going. I can't in good conscience let you walk in there with a smile on your face, playing pretend."
I released a heavy breath and stood up to wrap my arms around him. I rested my head on his back and felt his hands grip mine.
"We don't have to go. Tell your mother we won't be able to make it and we can do something else, okay?" I felt his body trembling. He was upset.
"I'll never have parents that just love me, will I? Parents that fit the romanticized image in my head of long phone calls and softness and love. Just love." His voice was breaking and his eyes were watering and I hated his parents for making him yearn for love when they're the two people in the world that should be providing it unconditionally. I turned him around and held him.
"I know, and I'm so sorry, Draco. I'm so sorry," I whispered into his chest. Even though my own parents have long forgotten me, and even though I, too, cried to myself over the loss of the ideal parent, I wanted to absorb his pain and carry it as my own. I wanted to protect him. What's more, he wanted to protect me.
After I saw Draco jumping from the cliff, he brought me inside and laid me on our bed. I wouldn't let him go. I needed a hand touching him at all times in case he left me again. The fear and sadness that filled my body when I saw him plummet from our backyard gripped my emotions tightly, froze them inside of me.
"Please don't go," I cried to him. With my hands still holding onto his arm, he succumbed and lied down next to me, holding me close to his body.
"I'll never leave you."
"You promise?" I asked through another fit of tears.
I heard him laugh and felt his lips on my shoulder. "I promise."
I still didn't feel safe. Something felt off. Something felt wrong. His words brought me no comfort, and I didn't bother fighting back the tears. I felt my husband's arms around me. And yet. I couldn't make sense of what I saw. It felt so real. Is it stress? Maybe hormones? I remember the missed period a week before the wedding.. Could I be pregnant?
