Fourteen

Day: 1256; Hour: 1

Her breathing is mirrored across from her, Lavender's trainer digging into her leg as the other girl adjusts herself in the tiny room. They can feel the Death Eaters walking past the door more than they can hear them, and she tries to make her breath soundless, but she hears it too loudly for it to be working. Her heart feels frozen in a twist, the adrenaline pumping along her shoulders. She can't believe just how close they came to being found by the group of them, and knows without a doubt there would be no escaping this place alive if they had been.

"Hermione?" Lavender whispers, and it's too loud still, Hermione's fear strengthening sounds and movement, until she is sure they will blow down the door with a motion of her finger.

"Huh?" Hermione asks, just a breath with a little more pressure than normal, her eyes darting in the darkness to where she knows the door is.

"Do you... Do you ever think of just...not going back? Like... Like we could stay here, and just not go back. I have family in other countries, and places I can go. We can just...hide. Do you ever think about it?"

"No."

Lavender is silent, which is good, but Hermione is right in thinking she is not done speaking yet. "I'm just so tired of being scared. All. The time."

Hermione waits to respond until she is sure there is no one passing by the door, and stands. "If we weren't scared, we wouldn't be human. People can die all the time - that's not just war, it's life."

"This is different."

"I know." Hermione finds the knob in the dark, and looks in Lavender's direction. "Are you coming?"

"Would you hate me if I didn't?"

"No."

There's a pause, rustling and thump, and then Lavender brushing against her side. "Let's go."

Day: 1257; Hour: 8

The noises behind her are her friends and not her enemies; she must keep reminding herself of this, because the sounds scare her. She can't remember a time in her life she had ever been so scared...not just this moment, but the entire time period of war. This era, this decade, this century of built up blood, dust, and rust on top of her bones that keeps her slower than she should be and feeling heavier than the stone wall rising up and out above her. This is worse than the monsters in the dark corners of her room (which was just her accidental magic) when she was a child, because she is the monster now. The monster in the left, looking at the one in the right, wondering if it sees her too.

She had thought she knew bravery too, and she had in a way, but not like this - not like now. She hadn't really known what it was like to be brave then, to be holding your breath under mud and waiting instead of fighting. To be afraid of bravery, and so afraid of herself because of it. The ultimate fear was fear of herself, of her wand, of her inclination to run into danger as if she was marked by it. What was bravery anyway? A word on a monument, on an award, on a gravestone? Perhaps there was a different name for what she held, and maybe it did not have a name. Maybe war did not have a name. Simple little words and letters, upper and lowercase letters that were trite and meant nothing to these moments, because it was too big and too important for something small and stupid like words.

What it was was what it was, and maybe that's what Draco had been trying to tell her all along. That maybe if she stopped naming things, stopped putting meaning to these things, she would stop expecting them to be what she named them, and there would no longer be room for the shock and tangled confusion. These years could not be named, nor the things they contained; they simply were and are and exist, and she did to, in them and through them and with them.

Day: 1260; Hour: 12

"You know...you're not how I thought you would be."

It finally draws his attention away from the women exercising on the infomercial, which she had been trying to do with a multitude of topics since she sat down. She had given up for a good fifteen minutes while she thought, and she isn't sure now if he's paying attention because of the topic or because they switched the women to older ladies now.

"How so?"

"Well, at first I thought you were the same, maybe worse. But even after I realized you were different, you're just... Not what I thought."

"And what did you think?" He glares down at the handful of popcorn she has on her lap, his bowl empty now.

"That you were an asshole, of course."

"That's changed?"

"Well...no." He snorts at her answer, and she waves her hand while she swallows her food. "You're still different though."

"I don't hold the same beliefs anymore, Granger. That's all that has changed. I'm still the same person."

"Not to me."

"Then how am I so different?"

"I find you...strangely forgivable." His eyes drop from hers to stare blankly at her leg, and then he turns his head back toward the television when he can't find anything to reply with. "Not... I mean... Sometimes I forget who you were, because of who you are now. I remember in some ways but it's like... It's like I can't be angry anymore. Even when I try to be."

"I've done nothing to warrant forgiveness, Granger." His voice is monotone.

"Yes," she nods, "you have. Or else this...we..."

"You shouldn't forgive me." He looks uncomfortable, shifting in his seat. "Like I said, my beliefs have changed, but I'm still the same person. I'm still screwed up, and cruel, and...and everything that you shouldn't be around."

She glares at him. "I can be around whoever I want, and I can forgive you if I please, Malfoy. Save me the self-loathing. I make my own decisions."

"You really are a daft person. You always need to find the good in everyone, even if it's not there, or it's outweighed by-"

She whacks him in the arm, drawing his eyes toward her, and she almost does it again for good measure. "I don't find the good in everyone. I find some in you. Deal with it."

"I-"

"And don't call me daft again."

"You're impossible."

"So are you."

Day: 1262; Hour: 22

She can see The Mark before the woman gets lost under an Auror, or else she would have sworn the lady was a perfectly normal witch. There is something scary in that recognition.

"Deserter," Englewood nods his chin at the scene in front of them.

Hermione shakes her head, turning her head toward Englewood but keeping her eyes on the screaming woman yanked to her feet. "Wouldn't she have known she would have gotten killed by her side or arrested by us?"

Englewood glares at her because he's one of the top notch Aurors, they all roll their eyes and talk shit about. "Cowards are deserters. That's why we've caught four from Voldemort's circle in the past two months."

Circle. Like it was all of six people they had spent these years fighting. What? Did it circle the damn globe? She opens her mouth to ask about how many they might have lost from their own side but thinks better of it. No one ever spoke about the people who left them - she wasn't sure if it was their way of not giving the idea out to people, to make it look like they were winning, or just some strand of honor to not call out their own people. Any way it went she knew she wouldn't get an answer, so she kept her mouth shut and tried to stop thinking if there was more than just death to all the people she had seen vanish the past three years.

Day: 1267; Hour: 13

Hermione's hands are covered in colors, her fingertips smudged with the rainbow as she tries to pretend she has a drop of artistic ability. Dean smiles at her across the table with part encouragement and mostly humor.

"It's abstract."

"Ah." He grins and nods, and returns to his own painting.

"This is a museum piece, you just watch."

"I bet it will be." He laughs, and she gives him a look, her smile killing any heat behind it.

She hums and draws an imperfect circle with one of the pastels that is a sun, or a Frisbee, or a ball... She did say it is abstract. Dean smudges shadowing on the portrait of a man, who Hermione recognizes as his father, and there is something very beautiful in the concentration of heart he puts into every stroke of his finger.

"Isn't it odd, how this feels normal sometimes?"

She looks up at his face, and he glances up at her before looking back down again. "How what feels normal?"

"This. Like this is how we are supposed to be living. Like this is just life after school. I thought maybe because we've been living this way for so long... But at times, when nothing else is going on and we're just sitting here, like now, it's as if it's how it's always been."

"The little breaks, you mean?"

"Yeah. When we have no orders, or everything in our faces, it's just... I think we need it though. That break, the reprieve. Just to...remember how to breathe."

She thinks of several things in the gap of seconds; painting, planting, games, conversation, Malfoy. "It's a good thing."

"It is."

Later, she finds no tape, and uses gum that Katie Bell left in one of the bedrooms. She sticks her abstract adjacent to the door in the stark white house, and stares contemplatively at the color until her feet hurt.

Day: 1279; Hour: 23

"I wouldn't have taken you for the type to leave in a rush after sex."

Hermione stares down at her shirt in surprise, her hands temporarily halting from turning it right-side out. He sounds uncaring and accepting of the fact, but curious all the same, and she certainly hadn't been expecting the statement.

"I don't really have a type," she whispers back, folding the shirt between her fingers.

His is smirking, she knows. "The indefinable Granger."

She blushes, though she doesn't know why, and looks down at her own nudity. She raises her shirt to cover herself, working to turn it in or out, as long as it's wearable, and leans her head to the right to look for her pants. Though she doesn't want to leave yet, she doubts sudden conversation means he wants her to any less - just as it always has been.

"Does it bother you? That I surprise you all the time, I mean." Because she does not want him to think she cares if it bothers him that she leaves after sex - despite that she already knows it doesn't.

There's a smile in his voice when he replies. "It depends on my mood."

She huffs a breath of laughter, but it stops when she feels a brush of skin against her back. His knuckles graze and follow the curve of her spine, and then it is his fingertips that dance softly across her bottom.

"Are you done with me tonight?"

She blinks at the wall, at the cold December colors outside the window, and suddenly feels as detached as winter is from the warmth of humans. She has never heard it put in such a way. As if she was simply using him, and disposing of him whenever she is through. She did in a way - in the sort of way that sex is about using one another - but she never actually wants to be done with him, and there is a different there.

She did not use him as some sex toy, or...or...or whatever sort of thing she could use him for that would make her feel this strange coldness freezing up her intestines. If he breathes too harshly, she fears they might splinter and shatter, like the icicles from the windowsill.

"I'm just saying because... Well, I may not be sixteen anymore, Granger, but I'm not old enough to be done in one shot either..." He trails off, leaving it open and hanging in the air between them. His invitation. His now known acceptance of her staying beside him in his bed.

She breathes, three, four times, concentrating solely on the way the air fills her up and then deflates her. She thinks of asking him if he wants her to stay, even though it's obvious now that he does, but only because she wants him to somehow get that this has never been her choice. That she always assumed her position to be the one that isn't welcomed to stick around.

Instead, she says nothing, and looks back over shoulder at him. It is a strange angle, and she can only make out his chin and chest, but his breathing is even and his pose only slightly stiff. He has put himself out there now in a way that she never would have dared, and even if she had somewhere else to be, she wouldn't leave now.

His fingers ghost back up, raising goosebumps in a wave from the small of her back to the nape of her neck. Her nipples pebble in attention to him, and her heart hammers that static, jumbled beat that has always been just his. Her movements feel weird and tangled, as they aren't used to the motion of turning back around toward him, and she blushes because she knows he's watching. She has to turn, and pause and shift and slide, and turn some more, and it is not graceful at all. He makes no comment on it though, because it is only normal, and she is beginning to learn that that is fine around him.

His fingers find her hair, and a knot in turn, and she winces with the pull against her scalp. He pauses, removes his fingers, and where other men may have not noticed or had given up, he surges forward and tries again. His palm is then warm and comfortable against her head, and he uses it to lead her jumbled body toward him, and her mouth to an angle easily accessible to his own.

His lips are hot, dry, and taste like her own, but it is so easily satisfying to feel them at all. He pulls her, rolls her, positions her into comfort, and to where she is laid out before him. He smirks wickedly down at her, as if this is the best plan he's had yet, hovering over her on his elbows. The heat is already building inside of her again, curling in her stomach like the slow turns of a fan against the soft tissue.

He takes his time with her body, plotting plans and routes, and discovering new land. He maps and divides and explores, and by the time dawn shines blue on their lazy limbs and tangled sheets, he has conquered every inch of her.

Day: 1285; Hour: 10

"I wonder what insects do for fun."

"Bother the crap out of us, maybe." Hermione grunts and tries to swat another moth flying at her hair.

"Probably. There are the sly ones...like mosquitoes. They're like...the Slytherin of insects."

"I take offense to that," their blond counterpart speaks up, finally raising his head from his notebook.

"No, well...yes." Neville laughs before continuing. "I mean, they come and bite, and then leave, and are satisfied knowing that they will effectively bother you for days even if they aren't there to see it."

"Then I suppose the kamikaze moths are Gryffindors. Fly at you with no real plan, and hope they dodge your counter attack. And usually end up..." Draco trails off, eyeing the twitching moth on the kitchen floor with meaning.

"There's more thrill, at least." Hermione tries.

"But little satisfaction."

"Maybe the best way to do things is to just put your heart out there and go for it. Aren't you the one who told me life can't be planned and structured all the time?"

"A mosquito puts themselves out there when they bite you. They just know when to get out in time."

"Not always."

"But usually."

Hermione shakes her head in the same fashion she does every time she is arguing and has nothing to come back with; but he recognizes it for such, so she doesn't escape his triumphant smirk.

Day: 1290; Hour: 20

Hermione looks up from the fallen tree she is working herself over, her face surprised. "What?"

"I said, Portkey out."

"Why?"

"You're a liability."

"Wh- I... There was no way I could have known that tree was dry rotted, and was going to fall over!"

"Your stupid mistakes just got the Death Eaters onto our location, not to mention that you're snapping twigs with every step, and your eyesight is poor in the dark. You're no use to us; we have enough team members. Portkey out."

"But-"

"Now," the Auror demands, his face shining with sweat and red with aggravation.

Hermione opens her mouth, shaking her head, and feels the rise of embarrassment as she notices all the eyes on her. "How can I not snap twigs-"

"Granger-"

"We're in the woods, and-"

"I. Said. Now. Don't make this worse for you when I report back to Headquarters, and tell them you also can't seem to follow orders."

"Fine!" she hisses, angry now, and practically rips the Portkey from her pocket.

Day: 1290; Hour: 23

Draco willingly shares his popcorn with her that night, and she thinks she should brood more often.

Day: 1293; Hour: 8

She has to look three times; precursory, the second a was that...no, not possible, and the third her own excited shrieking inside her head. He keeps the same goofy grin on his face the entire time.

She imagines it looks more like she is attacking him, though she concedes that she is, in a way. He laughs when she smothers herself in him, squeezing him so tightly that he has to pull back for air.

"Ron! When did you get here?"

"Yesterday. I have to leave in-"

"Shh, no, don't tell me." She shakes her head, and he smiles again, pulling her back into a hug.

Day: 1294; Hour: 7

The wind is harsh against her skin, and it burns where her hands have chaffed with the chill and dryness of winter. The snow is high and has toppled into her boots, soaking her socks and freezing her skin. She ducks her head against the elements, thinking Spring, thinking anything to keep her mind off how cold it is.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, the soles of her shoes leaving prints, and her feet leaving holes in the meter high snow.

She doesn't want to think about Ron, or his face when he looks at her like she doesn't get it. She doesn't want to think about breakfast, and the warmth inside, or how her friends seem so capable of making her feel sick to her stomach and shy around them now. Like she doesn't know them. Like they are constantly picking apart the things she says and does for errors, because her word is no longer good enough.

It hurts. Leaves this spot in her chest open and full of air that's pressing too hard against everything. He thinks she does not understand, because she is not there with him. But Hermione has fought her battles too, and even if they weren't beside Harry and him, it doesn't mean that she knows this war any less. It leaves her with an ache, because it has always been the three of them, but now it is not. Now she is divided from them, and she feels even more lost with this knowledge because she now knows that she is not the only one to think or feel it.

She isn't naive. She is hopeful. There is a difference. And Hermione Granger would never lower herself far enough down into that melodramatic self-pity pool as to think that being hopeful was being naive. She absolutely refused. War could change her if it liked, but it would not bring her to her knees.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, louder now, a pattern offbeat from hers. She doesn't have to look over her shoulder to know he was there. She doesn't have to wait for his scent on the air, or his voice to know who it is. She can tell just by the feel of him. The way the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end, and the way her bones seem to inflate.

He keeps his distance at first. Just somewhere behind her, following her on her path to nowhere through the snow and general emptiness around them. She tries to make it more complicated. Takes the hills instead of the flatland, winds instead of keeping straight, trudges on through dense woods instead of the normal barren landscape. She thinks he might fall back and drop off. Turn for home and give up on the whole thing.

Instead, he pulls up beside her. He sniffs occasionally, but he doesn't say a word to her. Not a single thing to let her know what it was he thinks he is doing. When she is agitated enough by it, she looks at him. His nose is red, his cheekbones and his ears smudged with color. His shoulders are hunched in an effort to keep the warmth closer to him inside his jacket, and his hands are dug deep into his trouser pockets. His head is bent, staring at the ground they're covering, but when he feels her eyes for long enough, he looks up at her. Crystal grey against gloomy skies and a world of white, his black coat such a contrast that it feels strange to look at him. She blinks because it kind of hurts her eyes. He lifts a brow, sniffs, and turns back forward again.

His arm brushes hers with every step now, and she realizes one of them has moved closer while they weren't paying attention to their steps. He doesn't seem to mind, or even notice, and she isn't sure she minds either. She speeds up her pace, but he pulls up and follows her still, matching her step for step until she feels she can walk no longer.