Chapter 34

Miraculously, the next day Hermione felt almost completely healed. She had this odd feeling something was going to happen, though. She felt like she ought to have forgiven Draco completely by now but there was just one more obstacle in her way. Hermione just couldn't place what it was.

Hermione absolutely hated not knowing something. Especially, something of importance. Usually, she would do everything she could to find out whatever it was that she needed to know.

Unfortunately for her, that was not how things worked in whatever this place was. So far, they had had to wait for whatever needed to happen, to happen on its own. They just needed to hope something did happen.

Hope. Something Hermione was not greatly accustomed to. She was used to either knowing something would happen, or knowing it wouldn't. If there was even an inkling of possibility that something wouldn't happen, then she kept it in her mind as it never happening. If it does end up coming true, she would deny that she ever thought it wouldn't.

Since Hermione was naturally very stubborn she always got away with this without so much as a raised eyebrow from somebody else, such as Harry or Ron, because they knew she would keep insisting and eventually get rather aggressive.

Recently, Hermione had given up on this way of living because there was so many things that might happen, that could happen, but didn't. There were so many things that might not happen, that couldn't happen, that did. She was as confused as she was when she was told magic was real.

Now that was a fine example of when she had been too stubborn to accept the facts. Even her parents, who were two muggles who had never known about the Wizarding community before Hermione was invited to Hogwarts, had accepted the fact before her. Professor McGonagall had had to come twice to try and convince her and still Hermione had not believed her. Only when Dumbledore came had she started to consider it.

Both of them had displayed magic for her to try and make her believe them but she had told them it was just fake and a pathetic prank. Of course, nobody but those two, her parents and herself knew that this had ever happened but Hermione down right denied every time it was mentioned that it had ever occurred.

But hope was something she was experiencing in this new house. She hoped that they could overcome this obstacle or whatever it was. She hoped that they could leave this house and timeline. She hoped they could return to Hogwarts safely. She hoped that the light side would win the war. She hoped that in the end, her and Draco could work out. She hoped she could forgive. That was all she had left now.

Hermione assumed that Draco's stupid, sodding father and Titus would take either Draco or herself and the other would have to save them. It seemed to be becoming a pattern now. One goes missing, the other comes to the rescue, they find another thing in their way, they have a normal day and then the cycle repeats.

This felt like it was going to be the last one. This felt like the end. The end of the beginning. There would be so much more in their way once they returned home and they would have to struggle through all of it with, yet again, hope.

Hermione felt somebody else's presence in the room but she knew it wasn't Draco's or Tallulah's. It was Lucius. She didn't know how she knew, she just did. He seemed to carry an air of frost and spitefulness about him. All the times she had encountered him in the past had made her sure of this.

Hermione sighed. "Guess you're just gonna take me somewhere to hurt me, aren't you?" She asked, not bothering to turn towards the other occupant of the room.

"I can definitely see why you are considered the brightest witch of your age." Lucius said sarcastically. Hermione could practically hear the sneer in his voice and sense the raised eyebrow. She rolled her eyes.

"Well, go on then." She said after there was a rather long pause. "Aren't you gonna viciously take me away and beat me because I deserve it? Because I am inferior to you due to my parents? My filthy Muggle parents? My parents who are people on this planet. Who were raised by their own parents and loved. Who are happy to exist. Who are living breathing beings just like you and I. Who have blood going through their veins and being pumped around by their hearts. Their hearts that have been filled with love for the living human being which is me. Who has lived. Who has breathed the same air as wizards all of my life. Organs in our bodies don't care if we're magic. That stays in our soal. Our hearts are made of the same sorts of atoms and such. Our blood looks the same. Feels the same. Is the same. So go on! Take me. Spill blood from my veins that you so obviously think deserves to be spilled. Kill me if you want. Take the last breath of air that my lungs will desperately fight for and watch me lie there, finally where you think I belong. Kill what could have been a future. What could of been happy, loved, loving. Kill what could make others happy and what could have never resorted to something as foul as you intend on doing to me. Kill the last hope I have. To live."

During her speech, Hermione had not noticed Draco enter the room. Draco had been about to attack his father but saw that he was listening intently to what Hermione was saying. An expression on his face that half suggested he was interested in her words. As if he was considering them.

It hurt Draco how true her words were. He wondered why he had ever believed that she was inferior to him. She was top of all the class and had been since the first day at Hogwarts, yet she had never been near the Wizarding community before and had never lived in a family that understood about it. It had all been new for her. Yet she had topped people like him who had grown up with magic being normal to them.

Draco had always been awed by everything Hermione had been able to accomplish. He had tried harder with his studies to try and catch up and so had never been far behind her in marks for classes. His father had been disappointed in him. Hurt him. So he had taken it out on her by being mean to her when she had done nothing wrong.

Draco then wondered why his father and Hermione hadn't said anything since Hermione's speech. He looked up, not even realising he had been staring at the floor, and saw that both of them were gone.

"Damn." Draco cursed as he collapsed onto the bed. He had no clue what he was to do now.

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