Part 2: The Lightest Hours

With his hands
his touch
His lips
his kisses
Come colors

Sprays of rainbow exploding beyond her eyelids

She's not sure what happened
Not sure what she asked for that night.
Not sure what he heard.
What meaning he found in her words.

'Just this once' she'd said.
'I want to pretend…' She'd whispered.

After the first two kisses she realizes she's not really pretending.

And neither is he.

After first caresses she realizes it's not meaningless.
It's more than just coping.
and more than an outlet.

Suddenly she doesn't remember the envy,
the coldness,
the bitterness,
the sorrow.

For a brief moment, she feels.
Her heartbeat on her ears.
And his under her fingers.

They're both here.
They're both alive.

Alive...

That night
as he carries her to the bedroom.
Where they've never been before.

That night,
between her white sheets,
she lets him kiss her on the lips
and something shifts.

.
.

She jolts up into the sprays of sunshine from her window.

He groans next to her.

The sun draws light patterns on his skin as she turns to look.
And he's still there.

Still in her bed.
Fair skin and white sheets
and sunbeams.

There's a flutter in her heart, she doesn't recognize.

She goes to the bathroom.
And only when she's standing beside her mirror does she realize,
there's only one face, Hers…

Ron…Ron's not there.
She didn't come to him last night.

An image of silver eyes, dark with desire, flashes her mind.
Arms around her hips as she fell asleep.

She looks at the mirror again.
"I'm sorry." She whispers silently.

Leans closer to the frames and looks at her own eyes.
Hazel
not a sign of blue.
"I'm sorry, but I have to let you go now."

He's sitting on the bed as she exits the bathroom.
Still undressed.

She halts to the doorframe.
He looks up.
Suddenly it's like there's an empty space in between them.
Like the way to him is much shorter than it used to be.

"What is it?" He asks.
He never asks.
Today he does…

She feels the darkness around her.
Senses it's swirling edges on her ankles.
And flares that lick her wrists like flames.

"He's gone." She breathes out.

Feels like falling.
Like the darkness calls for her.
It's what she knows.
Familiar.

He shifts on the bed,
and she takes a step.
The darkness whiffs like smoke on her feet.

One step,
Then two
Three.

four,five,six

Strong arms wrap around her.
And she's crying against his chest.

For all the times she was alone,
He's with her now,
and the darkness stays put.
Doesn't swallow her whole,
For the first time since Ron fell.

.

.

Eventually he leaves.
But also comes back.

Fucking to survive turns into something…
more.

He still knocks.
And she lets him in.

Lets him in...
Her house,
Her bedroom,
Her…

But also her life
her heart, maybe?

The darkness is still there.
Still dulling her senses.
Still drawing her away from Harry and the others.

In the late hours of her lonely nights,
she feels it calling for her.
But it's not a void anymore… not so swallowing anymore.
Not pulling her under anymore.

There's a bottom…
or a surface,
and she can almost see it.

The ghost of Ron doesn't come back.
Sometimes there's a flash of blue eyes in her mirror.
But when she takes a second look, it's gone again.

Draco, on the other hand, does come back.
Starts to sit on her sofa
Starts to ask her how her day was.
Starts to meet her eyes as he speaks.
Starts to kiss her on the lips.
and take her to bed.

She doesn't stop him.

Most nights he stays 'till the morning.

It's still not a relationship,
maybe.

They still know next to nothing about each other's lives outside of her apartment.
She has no idea what he does when he leaves.
How he spends his days?
Is she the only human contact he has?
Does he still think about jumping from the bridge?

She doesn't dare to ask.

When she goes to see Harry and Ginny and James, she starts to picture him with her.
Starts to remark things to him in her head.
Visualizes him answering.

It makes everything easier.

In the evenings she tells him what she speculated.
And he looks mildly amused.
She likes it…

After weeks of this new routine she asks him, "Where are your friends?"

He turns to her with an unreadable look.

"You told me everyone is either in prison or dead. But your housemates? Pansy?"

"Pansy's dead." He grumbles, eyes downcast.

"I'm sorry."

He huffs, "As sorry as I'm for Weasley?"

Silence follows his words.
Silence, where the names of the people they loved as teens, hang between them.

"No. As sorry as I can be about the fact that your friend is gone." She pauses, "As sorry as I can be that she died so young."

She takes his hand.
He doesn't look at her, but doesn't pull back either.

"It's part of my punishment. I'm not allowed to meet anyone. Even if the're alive."

She hopes she'd asked sooner.

"For how long?"

"Five years."

Worse than she thought

Five years without magic
and without friends.

Harsh…
Worse than he deserved.

"How do you stand it?"

He says nothing.
Meets her eyes and shakes his head.

As bad as her.
Nothing… like her.

She makes the first move.
Reaches for him and he catches her.

It's an embrace.
Warm
And soft
and comforting.

A promise to be there for each other.

.

.

She's glaring at the papers on her desk.
Papers, that have been her refuge.

Looks out of the small window,
to the road outside.
The street that a few months ago felt too wide,
too much.
To the world that was suffocating her back then.

They should go to the bridge…
Her and Draco.
They should go and close that door.

They're ready for it.
She knows they are.
Neither was going to jump anymore.

She should take him there.

But she doesn't get to.

It's the determination in her step.
The sun on the sky
or the busy street.

She's not paying enough attention entering the muggle parkway.
The car comes out of nowhere.
There's nothing she could have done once she'd already stepped.

BANG

.

.

She blinks.

There's a worried face above her.
"Oh Dear, are you alright?" A kind looking lady is asking.

She blinks again.

She's alive?

The moment the car hit her she was sure this was it.
She was going to die.
Run over by a car the very day she had decided life was probably still worth living.

She was going to die
and he was going to be alone.
Sucked back into the darkness maybe?

She was going to go
before she even got to thank him.
before she got to tell him what he meant to her.

She was going to leave him
Like Ron left her.

She tries to get up, but people around her tell her to stay put.
The ambulance is coming.
Her head feels a little fuzzy.

But she's alive!
Sun has never felt better on her skin.

She's taken to the hospital.
Nothing's broken.
The doctor tells her they want to keep her under observation for a few hours.
She nods.

Does she want to call someone? They ask.
She shakes her head, no.

Who would she call?
Harry or Ginny?
No, they had enough trouble with an uneasily sleeping baby.
Draco?
Did he even have a phone?

No, there was no one she could call.
She was fine on her own.

They give her a bed on the hospital hallway
Medication for pain
And a magazine to read.

She's fine on her own…
FINE!
She's not alone.
If she wanted to she could have called Harry and he would have come for her.
If she wanted there was someone for her!
...wasn't there?

After two hours she's alarmed by loud noises.
Someone yelling.

The door to the hallway bursts open.
And then there's a man.
Tall and dangerous looking.
A man she knows.
Walking along the corridor with hasty steps.
His long black coat flowing behind him like he's wearing a robe.

The nurse tries to get him to stop.
But he acts like she's not even there.

She sits up on her bed.
Locks eyes with him across the corridor.

He stops next to the bed.

The nurse says something.
But neither of them hear her.
Suddenly there are only the two of them.

Only her and this desperately fierce-looking man ahead of her.

She's not alone.
Not anymore.

"Are you hurt?" He's whispering.
Low and tight, like he's gritting his teeth.

She shakes her head, still holding his eyes.
"I didn't do it on purpose!" Is what she says.

At that the look on his face melts
and it seems like he lets out a breath,
"I know."

And then she's in his arms.
Held to his chest, against his wildly beating heart.
And his face is in her hair, almost like he's inhaling her.

"Do not ever do that to me again!" He breathes against her hair.

She takes a hold of his jacket and pulls him closer.
Shakes her head against him, "I won't"

He's here for her.
Because of her.
He came for her.
He'd had no idea where she was,
He'd looked for her!?
He's here for her!

He stays with her for the rest of the day.
Sits on her bed and ignores the disapproving looks from the nurses.
Doesn't talk much, but studies her like she might suddenly collapse.

"I'm fine Draco!" She tells him after hours of silent inspection.

"Can't be sure." He mutters.

"We're in a hospital. What do you think will happen they can't fix?"

"A muggle hospital!" He hisses, "Only so much they can do here! One sign of you getting worse and I'm taking you to Mungo's"

She's not even sure if that's possible.
If he's allowed close enough to the magical hospital to get her there.
But only him planning to do that.
Only him being here…

She takes his hand.
He glances at her.

"Thank you." She whispers silently.

Thank you for being here
Thank you for getting me off the bridge
Thank you for coming back
again and again
Thank you for being constant
Thank you for not asking for anything
Thank you for staying
and leaving
Thank you for standing beside me in the dark
Thank you for following me on the way to the light.

He squeezes her hand.
"I can't lose you too."

She's not sure if she's supposed to hear his words.
But she does.
and they signify everything.

"You won't" She tells him.

She means it!

.

.

For the next three days he doesn't leave
Stays at her apartment
and treats her like she's fragile.

He never treated her like she's fragile before.
Even when she was a lot more fragile than she's now.
She's not sure if she likes it or not.

But when he sits next to her on the sofa,
takes the book she's reading from her hands,
And starts to read aloud.
She agrees she likes it.

Puts her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes.
Wraps herself in his warmth and allows his voice lull her to sleep.

When she comes to again, he's stroking her hair absentmindedly.

"What do you do when you're not here?" She finally asks.

And he tells her.
At first nothing much.
Then he watched people.
Sat on a coffee shop and studied muggles.
Just to have a pattern.

"I followed you… when you went to that bridge." He says, "Not just that time you tried to leap. Many times before that too."

Vaguely she wonders if she should be freaked out by his confession.
But she's not.

"I was almost as done for, as you were, that day."

That day.
The day she tried to jump.

He didn't only save her.
But himself too.
Or maybe she saved him.
Maybe it was faith...

In the night she curls against him in her bed.
"You could stay here, you know?"
The words are out before she can stop them.

He's silent for so long she thinks she should take it back.

But his silence never meant no.
It doesn't this time either.

He stays.

And the darkness shifts ever further.

.

.

They go to the bridge.
Stand on the edge,
His hand on hers.

A light wind catches her hair and blows it to her face.
She inhales.

They're alive.
Living…
not just surviving to another day.

All else might be gone.

Who they were.
What made them what they were.
Who they considered as their people.
What they knew of life.

All of that might have changed.
Forced to be let go of,
or thrown away by will.

Everything that made her Hermione Granger
and him Draco Malfoy.
Had been reshaped.
Ripped to pieces.
Thrown into the wind.
and then collected back by shaking hands.

And now it was up to them to glue it back together.

"I didn't save you, for you." He tells her later.

"I know you didn't."

"I didn't come back for you."

She knows that too.

"Or I thought I didn't." He mutters, barely hearable.

"I know." She settles her hand on his cheek, "I didn't let you in for you."

"I didn't even feel sorry for you."

His eyes blaze.

"For the first months, all I thought about was Ron."

"I know." It's his turn to tell him.

Her hand is still on his cheek.

"I was scared to realize I missed you."

"Likewise."

"I cast off my friends to be with you."

"I didn't pretend when you asked me to."

"I know." She says.

He kisses her.

She tugs him to her.

Takes a final kick,
bursts through the surface.

And there's only light.
Only sunshine.
And rainbow hues.

.

.

The gloom leaves their house.
The shadows in the walls take another step back.

She goes to the Weasleys for dinner,
and gets through it without tumbling back down.
Looks at Harry's family, and doesn't feel envious.

Sad? Yes
Sad, that she somehow lost Harry along with Ron.
Lost the bond they had.
The devotion that made her stay in a cold, damp tent in the middle of a forest, for weeks.
Made her risk her life,
and give up everything.

It slipped through her hands as the darkness passed.
And what's left of her doesn't belong here.

The door of tragedy before her, never opened again.
But she turned away and found solace in the blizzard.

She looks up the stairs of the Burrow.
Remembers Ron coming down, sunkissed and smiling.
The flutter in her heart when his hand brushed her fingers.

There's one more gate she has to close.
One more phantom to leave behind.

She climbs up to his room.
Opens the door.
It creaks silently.

Chudley Cannons zoom in the posters on the walls.
One tosses the quaffle through the hoops and the team cheers.

A boy lived in this room.
A lively, goofy, cheerful boy.
A boy she loved.
A boy that never got to grow up to be a man.

She stands in the middle of his room.
With only memories as company.
Not ghosts.
Not anymore.

There's a picture of the three of them on the night table.
Three kids laughing.
Gryffindor scarves around their necks.
Frozen in a loop of time.

She smiles at the image sadly.
and puts it in her bag.

That's how she wanted to remember them.
Remember him.
As kids on an adventure.
Happy and carefree.

That's the only loop she wants to see him in.
Not in a nightmare, Falling to his demise again and again.
But laughing in some insignificant day,
only like a child can laugh.

"I think it's time they redecorated this room."
Harry's on the door.
Scanning her.

She nods, "Me too."

"Who is it Hermione?"

She turns to him.
His emerald eyes are serious.
and he looks nothing like the boy in the picture she just saw.

They gaze at each other across the room.
The-Boy-Who-Lived
And The-Brightest-Witch-Of-Her-Age
All grown up.

How many times have they shared secrets in this room?
How many times have they laughed in here?
How many times planned the future?
How many times been there for each other?

Who is it, he asks.
And she's going to tell him.

Here, in the middle of the room where she still can feel Ron's presence.
She's going to tell Harry.
And Ron…
And she'll never regret it.

"It's Draco Malfoy."

She doesn't whisper.
Isn't sorry for it.
Isn't ashamed.
They deserve to know.

"He saved me." She continues before Harry gets to interrupt, "I... I think I love him."

There's a heavy pause.

"I think he loves me too." She whispers.

The Cannons cheer again on the wall.

Harry stares at her.
Like he's struck to shocked silence.
The silence that hums in her ears.

Once upon a time she would have been scared of his reaction.
Once upon a time she'd wished for something else than silence.
Once upon a time she'd pleaded with him to understand.

But how can she, because she barely understands it herself?

"Hermione, are you...are you alright?"

Now he asks!?
Now, after almost two years, he asks?!
Although she does understand that maybe he wasn't alright enough to ask before.

She shakes her head, "No...but it's getting better."

"Ron would have hated it… You with Malfoy."

"You think I don't know that?"
Might as well tell him everything.
"For the first months, Ron was all I could think about! I started things with Draco, because the guilt he made me feel brought me Ron! I used to imagine him in my bathroom mirror, Harry!"

She blinks away tears, "I used to imagine him telling me what a horrible person I was. What a pathetic excuse of a human being. How, everytime I let Draco touch me, I violated his memory."

She takes a step closer to her best friend, "I can't keep living like that! It'll kill me! It almost already did. The guilt was the only thing that kept me hanging on! At least then I felt something!"

"Hermione, Don't."

"Don't what? It's the truth. If not for Draco, I would not be here!"

"So you decided it's your duty to save him?"

"No! I did not save him. I wasn't well enough to save anyone! I don't think you noticed Harry, but there was nothing left of me! I was nothing!"

Harry doesn't say a word to that.

"I loved Ron for years! I don't even think you knew how much! How much of my plans for the future were based on him! Me with him and you with Ginny. He was never supposed to die!" She's almost shouting, "But he did! And now he's gone and I have to let him go!"

She pauses, "I want to let him go! I want to remember him like he was when he lived! True and effortless and kind. That's why I came here today, to memorize him like he was! To finally move on!"

"With Malfoy?"

"With myself!" She almost spits out.

There's fire inside of her.
Fire that has been subdued for so long.
The same fire that once made her want to prove herself.
Made her sit in the library for endless hours.
Made her break the rules.
Made her lead Umbridge to the forbidden forest.
Made her protect the ones she loved.

It makes her cheeks heat up
And her fingers tingle.

"I don't need you to approve of him, Harry! I don't need your blessing! I loved Ron, but Ron is GONE! And now Draco's here and he's nothing like Ron. But I love him! Really and truly do! And if he wants to stay I'll keep him! And if you have faith in me like you used to, you'll accept this too!"

When she entered this room she wasn't sure.
She had only started to think what she felt might be love.
But now, yelling it out to Harry, she's suddenly sure,
She loves Draco!
With all the darkness and all the light.

And without a doubt, she knows he loves her too.

She leaves the room without another word.
Goes with all the memories.
Closes the last door from the darkness.
Steps down the stairs with the memory of him.
Walks through the dining room, brushing her fingers along the chair he used to sit in.
Out the door to the porch where he looked at her with awe in the morning of Bill's and Fleur's wedding.
Walks through the yard, past the spot he held her close as they danced under fairy lights.

Behind her the ghost of him fades.
Waves her goodbye
and laughs like he always did.

She smiles.
And with a faint pop,
apparates home.

Draco is just exiting the shower as she enters the room.
White towel around his hips.
Hair wet and messed.
Stops as he realizes her there.

He is perfect.
And he's hers!

She wants to laugh with sheer joy.

"I love you!" She tells him.
Loud and clear.
Words coming straight from her heart.

She can almost see the light that surrounds them.
Almost feel it pulsing like the dark did before.
Sense it wrapping her soul into an air-light fluff

He's stotic.
Frozen in place.
But there's a twinkle in his eyes.

"And I think you love me too." She continues.

There's something in her tone.
Something she didn't remember she had.
Almost like an order.

There's a change in his features.
Like a smile tugging his lips.

He comes to stand before her.
His nose only inches from hers.
His breath hot on her face.

He has practically been living with her for months now.
And still her heart speeds up.

"When were you ever wrong?" He whispers.

She puts her palm against his naked chest,
Bores her eyes into his "Not this time."

There's nothing subtle in the way her lips meet his.
Nothing hesitant in the way she drowns into him.

No one's memory hanging in the air as she backs him up to the bedroom.
And lets his towel drop on the way.

His well built body under her fingers.
And his hands on the curves of her figure.
His lips drawing maps on her skin.

And the past.
All of it.
Is just a memory.

.

.

He gets a job from a bookstore down the road.
She's so proud of him she thinks she's going to burst.

It's summer.
and he looks better,
healthier she's ever seen him look.

She takes out the seventh-year textbooks.
First he doesn't even want to look at them.
Sticks into muggle novels.
But eyes her reading every now and then.

Maybe he thinks she doesn't notice.

After days, he gives up.
Snatches a potions book from her hands.

"I was reading that!" She tells him half irritated, half amused.

"For the seventh time." He huffs, "My turn."

She smiles secretly and gets herself another book.

Sometimes, as she looks at him,
Sitting on a sofa, buried in a muggle classic,
She wonders what would have happened if they'd met before?
If they'd found each other at Hogwarts?
Or did they need the darkness to drown them?
Did they need to almost die to be reborn as the people they are now?

And what happens when he gets his magic back?
What happens when he needs to rearrange the life he's been forced to leave behind?

"Are you happy here?" She asks him in bed one evening.

He bends to her.
"I'm not sure I know what it means to be happy." He caresses the side of her face, "But I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

"Not even if you had your magic?"

"Granger." His voice is deep. Like resonating through her whole soul.

"I'm going to say something, just once. Don't ever ask me to repeat it." He takes a deep breath, "The day a car hit you on the street. When you didn't come home as you were supposed to. When I called the hospital and heard you've been taken there…"

He pauses.
"I've never feared for anyone more than that day. Not even when the Dark Lord threatened to kill me and my parents. There was no doubt, I would have given anything to see you unharmed. I would have lived my whole life without magic, if that's what it took to save you."

She blinks and only then notices there are tears in her eyes.
He takes her hand in his.
His long fingers lacing with hers.

"I'd rather live one day with you and forever without magic. Than forever with magic but the rest of my life without you."

She pushes closer, her nose against his, "Well, I'd like to think I know what it means to be happy. And I'm happy."

.

.

Maybe it's the happiness that messes with her head.
Or maybe she's just stupid,
or Ignorant.

She doesn't know where the error happened.
But she knows what it means when she's on her knees on the bathroom floor.
Heaving her breakfast down the toilet.

She knows what it means when her cycle is a week late.
She knows what it means when the smells in the cafeteria make her want to hurl again.
She knows what it means when she falls to the bed after a day at work, so exhausted she could sleep a month.

She knows.

Her hands shake as she takes the test out of the carton.
The five minutes she has to wait for the reault, feel like a lifetime.

She knows what the outcome is going to be as she turns the test around.
But the two red lines still make her tumble on the sofa.

She sits there, staring at the lines.
God knows how long.
Isn't sure how she should feel.
What he's going to say?

She's still on the sofa
the test on the table before her, when he comes home.

"What's the matter?" He asks instantly.

She just looks at him.
Numbly.

What if he's going to freak out and leave?
They never talked about the future.
Never planned anything.
What if she's going to force something upon him he doesn't want?

He lowers himself on his knees before her.
Takes her hands in his.

"What is it?"

She's not sure if the words come out.
Not sure if her lips even move.

"I'm pregnant."

Time stops.
His hands are warm over hers.
And his silver eyes shine.

"I'm sorry." She whispers.

"What for?" His voice has that tight tone to it again.

"For being careless. For forcing this upon you." She thinks she's going to cry.

"But not for… for the outcome?"

She shakes her head.

He takes her face in between his hands.
"Good. Cause neither am I."

He kisses her.
Light and...loving.

Puts his forehead against hers and tells her,
"It's going to be alright. I'm going to take care of you. Both of you."

A wet chuckle escapes her lips.
And she kisses him again.
With lips, salty from her tears.

"I love you." He hums against her lips.

.

.

She's born on a day when the sun makes fresh snow glitter.
Born with blond curls on her forehead.

Born in a muggle hospital.
Although her father kept telling every other minute how it was completely insane to let her be born here.

But then she twists her tiny fingers around his and he goes silent.

And her mother watches with a secret smile,
how those little fingers curl around his heart too.

And the room is filled with light.
Rising from tiny hands and feet,
circling around the walls.
Zooming in from every window.
Making everything sparkle with colors.

He takes her hand and pulls her closer.
Kisses her forehead lightly,

and whispers "I think I know now how happiness is supposed to feel."

FIN