Tinsadisaster
Summary: Remember when you loved me? DMHG
Disclaimer: I own Harry Potter and all its characters in my dreams. I just give them back to JKR when I wake up.
Author's Note:
My lovely, loyal readers. I know this story is about a year or so belated in updates. This has been one of my most successful fanfictions and I've recently been inspired to be able to say,"I am a fanfiction writer with a COMPLETED story!" So here is a little something something.
Now people say that he don't look well
But all he needs, from what I can tell
is someone to help wash away the pain
... before it's too late
Norah Jones - "Broken"
Draco froze. He felt like he was suspended in time as she walked towards him, holding flowers in her hand. The frosty wind swirled around him, encasing him in that ever so powerful embrace that made him feel numb, as if he had been standing in this position for a very long time, waiting for her to come back to him.
"I came because I remembered," she said.
Shock pierced Draco's heart like a bloodthirsty sword. He bled relief and at the same time, disbelief. His Hermione remembered? Was his time of pain and torture over?
No.
"I remember that your mother and father died today, and I wanted to console you, as well as visit them. Though they really weren't very fond of me, I think they deserve respect nonetheless. Look at who've they raised," she chuckled lightly.
What had they raised? A pansy? An isolated fool who melted at the sight of a woman, a Muggle?
He looked at her, as if she was gone for a very long time, gone on a vacation to somewhere where the sun gloated in its brightness and the skies were never threatened with angry clouds and loud thunderstorms. She had gone away but she was back.
"Why do you stare at me like that, Draco?" She was nervous, he could tell. Her fingers had wrapped themselves around the stems of the white roses that she brought tightly, like a snake and its prey. Her flimsy white robes flailed in the wind and it seemed she was being pushed towards him.
"I'm... surprised," he replied weakly. She still had the power to make him completely illiterate, had him straining to let out the right words, any words.
"I know. After all this celebration, who'd think to remember the past, you know?" She held his hand, squeezed a little, and let go to lay down her peace offering before the tombstones whose faces elegantly were inscribed with the names Narcisuss Malfoy and Lucius Malfoy. She stared at the numbers recording their lives and frowned. They were too young.
"I hope you are doing well, Mister and Mrs. Malfoy. We're trying our hardest to do the same," she said quietly to the inanimate rock that was to represent Draco's blood and flesh, his family. She bowed her head for a few seconds before lifting herself up to her full height again'
"I don't want to be a liar. Tell me, how are you doing?" She stared at him, hopeful for an answer.
"I've been doing as well as I should, seeing the situation that I am in," Draco said. He managed a small upturn of a lip that should have resembled a smile, or a smirk at best. He felt as if he was playing Quiddith, really. He was among the clouds right now, and the thing he wanted to hold with his hands was just a breath away, but had he the courage and the luck to take it and win?
"You were probably startled when you saw me just appear out of nowhere. I was actually worried you had kept up your vicious security charms. Your home, and you, they seem almost the same. People have to climb over so many walls before they get to the heart of the matter," she said. Hermione always had figured him out. To the world, he was a mystery enclosed in a Pandora's box. She was the curious little witch who opened him up and let him ruin her world.
"For the past week, I've woken up with this nagging feeling, like I had forgotten something very important. It bothered me so well that I just had to cast a remembrance spell to finally figure it out. I had circled this date in my planner and there was this little comment scrawled down next to it. It said, 'See Malfoy.' I didn't which one, but I came nonetheless."
"Thank you, Hermione. Only you would have remembered my parents' death day. It's getting rather brisque out here, would you like to come inside and join me for tea?" asked Draco. Was it pathetic that he was sweating bullets, just asking her inside his home?
"Hah, I think you'll have to hold my hand. I don't know what ghouls will pop up from behind these tombstones. Given my blood status, your relatives will literally be rolling out of their graves, only to escape and attack me." She offered her hand, which he took lightly, though it slipped. His palms were sweaty.
"If I didn't know, I'd say you've been bawling your eyes out, Draco. Don't think I forgot how you like to cry. You never had the bravery to let me see you cry, at Hogwarts. You always turned the other way and covered your face with your hands. Though you heaved and panted, you'd never take your hands away. I swear, you passed out one night because you wouldn't let yourself breathe."
He pretended to scowl at her, as he used to when they were seventeen and on shaky ground. But he smiled quickly and grabbed her hand, successfully this time. He guided her around the graveyard and towards Malfoy Manor. It was a short walk, but he wished it would never end.
What he would give to be able to hold her hand freely again.
I never could breathe when I was with you, Hermione. You always took my breath away.
Draco was thinking silently as they walked towards their destination. Hermione said she remembered this certain day, that it had pecked at her mind. She used a remembrance spell. She had somehow remembered to write down that little note, probably a while ago. Was her memory coming back? Or had it been the work of magic?
More importantly, was there magic strong enough to make her remember him, them?
"Things have changed since the last time I was here," Hermione murmured, gazing at the ivy crawling up and down the Malfoy Manor's foundation. The bushes had run wild, the thorned stems of the roses poked at odds and ends.
"I've been too preoccupied to bother with keeping up the place. Besides, for whom would I do all that?"
"Well, you must be dating someone. My own housemates used to throw themselves at you. I hardly think you're lacking in the female companion department."
Lacking? He was drowning almost, but they were never the right kind. Hermione was the one standard that he compared all others. How could anyone fill in her shoes?
"Well, I could introduce you to some of Ron's psychotic fans. I swear, those women wait up till Merlin knows what hour just to see a glimpse of him when he's home. You'd think they were obsessed. Ron's just a Quiddith player, and I doubt they want to see him for his Weasley Feints."
He had avoided this subject, particularly for the reason that he hated Ron Weasley, had always hated him, and never planned to change his feelings. His mood had turned sour, just as they had entered the dining hall. If he knew Hermione correctly, she would never take tea here. There was only one place --
"Let's go to the kitchen, shall we? I believe there is only one place to have tea, straight from the pot." She was the one to drag now, pulling his hands and guiding him towards his kitchen. Draco wondered if she noticed. They were the only magical souls in his home.
"Do my eyes deceive me or does Mr. Malfoy not employ house elves?" He nodded and she smiled brilliantly at him. She said that her years of shoving S.P.E.W. down her throat finally worked.
He had been living alone ever since he had made Hermione forget and his parents died. However, there were ghosts roaming the halls. His ancestors spat at his shoes and looked down upon them, even if they lacked bodily fluids and body parts.
She made a strange noise, which sounded like squealing, and threw her arms around his shoulders, which was a difficult task, as she was significantly shorter than his tall frame. An apparition nearby scowled at their embrace and scurried along to warn the other occupants that a Mudblood had contaminated their roaming grounds.
Draco reciprocated the gesture and moved his hands around her waist. He involuntarily curled his head towards her hair, smelling the alluring shampoo she used. His eyes caught something over her shoulder and he saw their reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. What a lovely sight, he thought.
"Now that's over with, let me have my tea so that I can be off on my way. I'm awfully busy, but I wasn't too busy to see you."
Good girl, you always made time for me.
"No, Hermione Granger, I will never let you have your tea so you'll never be on your way. I will trap you in the dungeons so you'll stay with me, forever."
"Malfoy, you were always a flirt. And remember, I'm a married woman now. Now let me go, your great aunt is giving me a piercing glare. I think she disapproves of me."
"No, no, her face was permanently charmed that way. Nasty charm created by her son. He was such a wand-happy child. Never liked being told what to do, but knew what to do to take the mickey out of his mother." He never met this rowdy little cousin because the carefree spirit had run way from his parents' home and was burned from the family tree.
He watched her retreating figure disappear into a dot in the horizon. He insisted that she take one of his cloaks to keep her warm because the only apparition accessible point was a walk beyond the gate of the Manor. His father didn't care who had come in, just that they wouldn't be allowed to leave if they were the wrong type of people.
He served her tea and she gave him happiness, but now she was leaving.
However, she had also given him hope. She told him what remembrance spell she used and how she created it, even scribbled down some notes for him. He told her that he wanted to make one of his own.
"Now why would you want to do that?" she asked him, through a mouthful of pumpkin pecan pie.
"I know someone who needs to remember something very important, but they need my help to do so."
What an understatement, he thought.
Hermione Granger, be prepared. I've hid behind my hands for too long. I'm ready to show myself to you, completely. The question is, will you have me still?