Chapter 8 - Break

I stare at him.

Why?

Why would he save me?

Why would he care?

It doesn't make sense.

My mind can't wrap itself around the concept that Draco Malfoy would save me.

And he's conflicted.

I can feel his tormented soul.

He wants me to know something.

Desperately.

But at the same time, he's afraid.

How can I feel his emotions as my own?

I guess it has something to do with how he can hear my thoughts.

And I want to know what he is conflicted to tell me.

Desperately.

Answers.

Oh, how I want answers.

"I wish I could," Malfoy says quietly. "But I've told you before, you have to remember on your own. If I tell you now," he pauses and takes a deep breath. "If I tell you now, you'll never know."

I raise a brow.

"Riddles now?" I accuse.

He shakes his head. "I want you to know, want you to remember. You have no idea how much."

I know how much.

And it confuses me.

Because there's something more than self preservation hidden in the wish.

He said he needed me to trust him so that he could survive.

What could Draco Malfoy want other than to live?

And once again, I feel the twist of hurt.

I shake my head, not knowing what to do.

I don't even have to talk and yet I hurt him.

I'm so frustrated that I can't even think in private.

How am I supposed to figure anything out with someone else listening into my every thought?

Especially when what I am trying to figure out is him.

How can I do this?

Can I walk away?

Can I walk away like he did?

I turn.

Without another word, I turn, and I run.

I can't handle this!

I can't handle all the feelings!

I can't separate my own from his or keep my thoughts to myself.

So I run.

I feel the balls of my feet sinking deep into the sand with every step, feel my lungs heave for breath, my heart pound in my chest.

I run.

I run from the feelings that I don't want to acknowledge.

Because I can't tell if they are his or mine.

And it scares me.

Terrifies me.

I run.

And get nowhere.

Surrounding me is still beach, the water still sprawls beside me, and nothing else is in sight.

I see him.

He is small, in the distance behind me.

He is standing exactly how I left him, staring after me.

And I don't want him to hear my thoughts, I don't want to be able to feel what he feels.

For a moment, I want to be alone.

Alone with my thoughts, alone with my own emotions.

I drop to my knees in the sand.

How has it come to this?

How did my life become so messed up?

When did he become so . . .

I laugh.

It has finally hit me.

The weight of what is happening, of being here, with Malfoy, and unable to leave, unable to remember, it's like someone pushed me to the ground and is holding me down, holding my face in the sand so I struggle to breath.

Some people might cry at this point. Some might scream. Some people might dissociate from this make-shift reality.

But me, I laugh.

I laugh because I want to be alone.

I laugh because I don't how long ago it was that I sat on this very beach, angry with myself and with him, because he left.

How the hell did he leave?

Where could he possibly have gone?

Out there.

He said he was out there.

More questions with fewer answers.

I didn't want to be alone.

I didn't want to be alone and now I ran as fast and as far from him so that I would be.

But I'm still here.

He was able to leave and I am still here, trapped.

What even is time?

It strikes me that the sun has always been in the same place in the sky; the same clear, blue sky. I don't remember a night; I don't remember a morning or an evening.

And I laugh.

I laugh because I am going insane, trapped inside my mind with him.

And I don't know what I think about it.

I don't know what I think about it and I am inside of my own head.

Hermione Granger, what the hell has happened to you?

My thoughts are circular, spirals of never ending confusion, pain, fear, and . . .

Absolutely not.

Neither of us are thinking that.

But in any case, this has got to be some type of turning point in my life where I become a completely different person.

Is that what happened to him?

Something snapped the world into perspective?

The insane illusion of a world inside my head.

I'm overwhelmed with thoughts, with emotions, with never-ending uncertainty and confusion that has me curled into a ball on the sand laughing like some crazed woman, utterly mad, laughing because I am too overwhelmed, too confused, even to cry.

I can't even remember what happened yet.

I haven't remembered why he saved me or what he saved me from.

All I know is he did.

And that realization sends me back a step.

I need to know.

I have to go back.

Pulling myself together, I push my body from the sand.

I have to go back to the memory.

I have to see what happened.

It's the only way I'll know.

But the real question in all of this is:

Do I want to know?


Author's Note:

Hello beautiful readers! I hope you had an amazing week. Mine was a little crazy once again, but isn't it always?

This chapter actually wasn't the one I originally had for chapter eight, but I wrote it to show a bit more of how Hermione is dealing with everything, or was dealing in this case. I wanted to show that she isn't a damsel in distress and has been strong up until this point, but I also wanted to demonstrate how overwhelmed she really is, and has been holding it back. She is overwhelmed and afraid but she fights and pushes through. Let me know if it came across or if the chapter even made sense. I'm not really sure if it did lol. But that might also be the point, because her own thoughts would probably be pretty chaotic.

Anyway, thank-you so much to those of you who left me comments, I love you guys!

I hope you have a really great week and I will post chapter nine next Sunday!