Thank you for reading my story.
Chapter Eight.
Hermione's eyes fluttered closed as she leaned her forehead onto the cool glass of the window. She was apparating back to Hogwarts in a few minutes. McGonagall's rules stated that all seventh years, who had journeyed home for the weekend, had to be back at Hogwarts by seven o'clock on a Sunday night. Hermione wanted to spend every last second that she had with Ron, who sat across from her in one of their mismatching armchairs. He was playing wizard's chess with his best friend, and for once – Harry seemed to be winning.
The room looked like something from a story book. A glorious warmth emitting fire was aglow in the huge old-fashioned fireplace. Ginny, a tartan blanket wrapped around her legs, was curled up on the fading red squishy couch. She was watching the chess game with a sort of absent curiosity, and her eyes held humorous surprise that Harry was actually getting quite good.
Ron looked happy, even if he looked tired. The night before had been spent in a muggle bar, and the group of four had retreated back to Ron and Hermione's new home with each other's terrible signing ringing in their ears and drunken laughter making it difficult to say goodbye - so Ginny and Harry had stayed.
Nobody watching could have known that the group would be separated by many miles in a matter of minutes. No one in the room looked like they wanted to leave, and there was no signs to tell that any of them was going to.
Rain trickled down the gutter pipe next to the window and Hermione closed her eyes. She wasn't sad this time, about leaving. Not if every weekend she got to come home would be even half as good as this one had been.
It had been brilliant, magical. She still couldn't believe that they had their own apartment at last. The fact that Ron picked the most perfect place, the most Hermione-ish apartment he could find just made her heart glow. He knew her so well.
Being apart from him for week made them both value what time they had together even more than usual, and Hermione was quite content with knowing she was going back for another week of schooling. But returning to her amazing new home every weekend was not going to lose it's novelty for quite some time - if it ever did.
Ginny stood up and folded the patched blanket with a yawn, "C'mon Hermione its five to seven."
Harry stood, his black hair once again in a tousled mess and his eyes victoriously sparkling. He had won. His arms enveloped Ginny and she let her chin fall on his shoulder.
"See you next week Harry." Kiss.
"I'll miss you, Gin." Kiss.
"Me too. But it won't be for long." Kiss.
Ron was grinning as he pulled Hermione up from the floor where she was sitting. All the windows in the apartment were floor length, elegant. Hermione had made a sort of nest with pillows beside her favourite one, which was hung with a red velvet curtain. She grinned back at him, on her feet and at his level.
"I don't think I'll ever forget this weekend." She whispered, playing with the button on his shirt. "Neither will I."
And then he hugged her, and she could feel that he was not as tense and anxious as he had been at there last goodbye. She giggled when he whispered in her ear – "Don't tell Harry, but I let him win."
Her feet planted back on solid ground, it wasn't raining at Hogwarts. Ginny appeared beside her, swaying slightly, and it was Ginny that held back Hermione's hair as she threw up violently into the bush next to the castle gates.
"You okay?" Ginny asked her when she stood up again, her small frame shaking.
"Y-yeah." She mumbled. "I didn't f-feel sick before, I guess apparating on a hangover is not the best way to apparate."
"No." Ginny smiled sympathetically. "Lets get you up to the castle then."
Hermione's legs wobbled unsteadily as they walked up the Castle lawn.
It was Sunday morning, his legs stretched out infront of him as he sat on the park bench. It was beautiful here, the leaves of autumn colours cascaded down from the trees.
He had yanked his black hood over his head upon leaving the apartment, cursing the awful weather, as was the social normality - but he did not bother to put an anti-wetting charm on his clothes. If rain wanted to fall on him, he let it. He liked it, cool and cleansing on his pale skin.
He had come to this park exactly twice before. The first time, he had slept drunkenly on this very bench all night. The second time, he had come to feed the ducks.
When he had enough of pretending to blend in, he stood. His wet, blond fringe was dripping, sticking out from under his hood as he walked fast. Vaulting over the park fence, he walked into the cluster of trees at the back of the park and dissaperated to Hogwarts. No point on dragging it out, he wanted to go back, to get some proper food. He had been living off greasy chips all weekend.
There was no rain, no clouds, when he arrived outside the castle gates – so he dropped his hood and shook out his hair.
He got a sandwich in the great hall at lunch, and then walked down to a tree near the black lake. He liked outdoors, he liked sitting and just watching as the world carried on around him – birds, people, flowers and the sky – he loved the sky the most. It was never the same, clouds always changed, travelled. And at night time, he watched the stars.
He had a ruffled notebook in his bag, not for drawing - he couldn't draw at all. He liked to write in it. He wrote what the world looked like to him- in that split second of time. He captured what he saw with words, and never had he wrote the same sentence twice. That was what he intended to do with his day – sit and write.
He wasn't exactly sure what it was called, writing the things he saw. It wasn't poetry and it wasn't like writing a book. It was just… nothing. He wasn't even sure why he did it. At Malfoy Manor, there were notebooks upon notebooks of his scribbled writing, all describing things. He couldn't remember everything he had written though. All he knew is that he still did it now.
Draco's Notebook: PRIVATE
I see my door. It's white. It's open. Draco junior, my green dragon teddy, is lying beside it, guarding my room from intruders. Draco is Latin for Dragon. It's night time at the window. But Mummy hasn't closed the curtains yet, the tree is like fingers scraping the glass, I'm scared. I can hear screams, but I don't know who it is. It sounds like Mummy…
I can see a rabbit, it's running across the lawn. I like it, it's cute. I'm staying quiet so I don't scare it. Now it's going to run out into the driveway. I don't want it to. Dad and Mum are sitting on the porch. I don't want him to see the rabbit. He would kill it.
"Filthy animals eating the flowers. Get the gardener to poison them Narcissa."
The rabbit's gone, I ran at it and it ran away into the bushes.
"Draco baby be careful you'll fall running about like that!"
I can see Mummy. She's making my bed with Dobby. I'm in my chair. Mum is singing, her voice is beautiful. She looks happy… but she hasn't gone to the nurse yet this morning… her eye is still black…
He wondered if the notebooks were still under his bed, in his old room, or if they had been thrown out. Since he moved to London he started a new one, and he wrote in now.
I can see water, rippling water. It's dark, murky. I can see the sky, it's clear, there's clouds - a few, but they are puffy and white. The wind is blowing in the forest's trees.
It was half three when he fell asleep, and seven o'clock when he woke up.
"DO you think you should go to Madame Pomfrey?"
"No… I feel better now Gin. I'll be fine. It was just because we apparated…"
He heard…Hermione? Sitting up, rubbing his eyes, he looking around.
Once again, his ears heard Hermione before his eyes had a chance to find her. The two girls were coming in Hogwarts gate, and their voices carried through the still evening air to reach Draco. He waited until they passed by his tree, not wanting them to know where he had been. Before he left, he scribbled one last thing hastily into his notebook. Then he stood up fast, gathered his stuff and ran to catch up to them.
"Hermione! Ginny!"
Ginny turned, rolling her eyes.
"Oh brilliant. Draco's coming."
Hermione grinned, "You say it like it's a bad thing."
"Well it isn't good." Ginny muttered under her breath, but Hermione didn't hear her.
"Draco!" she greeted him happily, "Did you have a good weekend? We just got back too!"
"Hi Hermione! Ginny. Yeah, it was great." The lie slipped easily off his tongue, he had always been a good liar. He didn't mention the fact he had arrived back earlier.
"I still think you should go to the hospital wing Hermione, and get checked out - just incase."
Now it was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes, she turned back to her worrying friend.
"Ginny I feel fine! Honestly it's nothing."
"Were you sick?" Draco asked, matching Hermione's pace as she walked quickly.
"No. Well, yes. But I'm fine now!"
Ginny narrowed her eyes, she wished that Hermione would just get Madame Pomfrey to take a look. But no, she was far too stubborn.
Draco cursed under his breath. "Fuck. Uh, I left something – my notebook, back there. I uh, I'll go back and get it. I'll see you guys later."
Hermione stopped walking.
"Did you drop it? I'll go back with you."
Ginny scowled. "Well, whatever then. I'm gonna go get dinner. You coming or staying Hermione?"
"Staying. If I'm so sick maybe some more fresh air will do me some good."
Draco's face broke into a grin, he liked this snippy, sarcastic Hermione.
Ginny huffed and walked away, her red hair glowing like fire under the sun.
"Did it fall out? What is it?" Hermione asked him as they started the descending walk back towards the tree.
"Erm, well, no. I didn't just get back to Hogwarts, actually. It's just a notebook, not important really. I was just sitting out for a while, near the lake. I never packed it back in my bag. Sorry."
"No apologies Draco, I need the healing power of fresh autumn air anyway." She grinned
He laughed.
"So, what, did you actually get sick?"
Hermione blushed.
"Erm, yes. Outside the gates. Apparating on a hangover is never a good idea."
He breathed a sigh of relief, it was only hangover sickness. When he found out she was sick, worry had consumed him. But he hadn't pestered her for details, she seemed snippy enough at Ginny for suggesting she get treatment.
"Did you have a good weekend then?" he asked.
She smiled at him.
"It was fantastic, Draco! Ron and I moved into an apartment together!"
And there it was. The werewolf was back, ripping him to pieces, devouring his heart.
Dead, his heart fell like a lead weight. She had moved in with Ron. Ron had bought her a house.
"T-that's really great." He stuttered out. "I'm happy for you Hermione."
She looked up at him from under her eyelashes. "Thank you, Draco."
What had she been expecting? For him to be upset, for him to be angry? Did she want the news of her moving in with Ron to hurt him? No. She did not. Did she expect that it would?
Why the hell did her heart drop in her chest when he told her he was happy?
She looked up at him, his hair hanging in lose waves, and his grey eyes on hers. They, at least, did not look happy.
As a matter or fact, his whole face looked like it was being force painfully into a happy expression. His words had convinced her that he was truly happy for her, but his face told a different story. A story she much preferred. Why did she want him to be upset?
Hermione realised; she wanted him to be jealous. She wanted him to be angry that he was not the one moving in with her. She wanted to know if he wanted her… because…. Because she wanted him.
Wait, what?
She didn't want Draco… did she? No, she did not… but then…. Did she?
Her head was spinning, she felt sick again.
No. This wasn't a real feeling. This wasn't something she wanted or needed or believed was real. She did not love Draco. She loved Ron - the man she had grown up with, like a brother. Like a brother. NO! She loved him.
She loved them.
One as a friend, a brother. One, as her true love.
Her head seemed to be having a hard time deciphering the difference between the two.
"D-Draco?" she murmured, needing to know if she had read his features right, needing to know that, if indeed, he had been jealous. That he had been upset. She needed to know for reasons she could not explain to herself.
"Yeah?" he asked.
There was only one way to get the truth out of a man like Draco, because he never would he straight up tell her. Never would he willingly admit that he was … whatever it was that he was.
"You always were a shit liar." She told him.
His eyebrows shot up.
"W-what? I'm not a shitty l-liar. I'm an excellent liar, I always have been."
"No, you have not. You lie with your voice not with your eyes and your eyes are telling me that what you just said was a lie. W-why did you tell me you were happy for me? W-why aren't you happy for me?"
He glared at her.
"What the fuck Hermione!? Why wouldn't I be happy. It's just fucking brilliant, isn't it? How's Ron settling in? Nicely I fucking hope." He spat.
She flinched, but kept walking, matching his pace. "Sorry." He muttered.
She didn't need an apology, she got what she wanted. Proof. Draco wasn't happy. And for some reason that seemed to be right in the centre of Hermione's heart – that made her happy. She hated that reason. She hated the happiness spreading through her, because it was accompanied with worry. Why did she feel this way?
She stopped walking, her hands raking like forks through her hair as she scratched her head painfully. Her breath was ragged, desperate.
Ron, she loved Ron. Where the fuck had these feelings for Draco come from, all of a sudden? She despised herself. How could she do this? How could she… (could she?)… love them both?
Draco was broken, he was scarred and he was fragile and maybe… maybe that was why. She had spent weeks helping him, weeks helping him to renaissance himself and become a better man. And in those weeks, in the hours she had spent chatting and the nights she fell asleep worrying, had she grown to love him for the better man that he already was? Had she seen the real him finally realised that he was… that he was so utterly unprecedented and annoyingly charming and so goddamn fucking beautiful? He had taken time to know her, and she had fallen in love while getting to know him.
Draco stopped walking and turned around. She had stopped on the spot, and her hands were pulling at her hair. He walked back towards her.
"Hermione? I, uh, I'm sorry for shouting. I'm so stupid, I'm so sorry. Do you feel sick again?"
Her eyes lifted to his, tears straining against her long brown eyelashes. His breath hitched.
"Draco." She said his name through a sob. And then her hands left her hair and enclosed around his waist and she hugged him so tightly. What was going on? What had just happened?
She hugged him, breathed him in, she hugged him because it was just a hug and hugging was aloud. Nobody but her could tell from this hug that she was… that she had… that she loved him. She… loved him. She loved him. She needed his arms to hold her up when all she wanted to do was fall because she was the worst type of person.
"Draco. I-I'm so s-s-sorry." The tears fell free now, making a damp patch on his grey shirt, right next to his heart.
"Hermione… erm, that's okay? Wait, why are you sorry? You haven't done anything wrong. Look at me. Look."
He tilted her chin up and latched his eyes onto hers.
"Hermione you have not done anything wrong. I should be the one apologizing. I'm so sorry. I shouted. I said things… Please don't cry."
His thumb caught the tears that hug on her checks and he smiled sadly down at her.
He wanted nothing more that to just make her see it. Make her see that she was perfect, that she had done nothing wrong, but everything right. Hermione Granger was always blaming herself but she had done nothing bad. She was tough and brave and knew how to defend herself. But she was fragile, she was delicate, and sometimes, like this time, she needed someone to fix her.
I'll try to fix you.
He looked down at her and remembered the night that she had fixed him. He didn't know exactly why she was crying but it was breaking his heart. And for the first time, he felt like admitting it to himself, admitting what he had been avoiding thinking about until now. He didn't know why the girl with wavy brown hair and eyes that held the world was crying, but he knew why it was breaking his heart.
His heart wasn't his anymore, and it hadn't been for a while. It was hers.
He loved her.
He wasn't ashamed and he wasn't going to try fight with himself and pretend anymore that it was anything but love.
"Hermione what can I do? Tell me and I'll do it."
What had he done? He hadn't done anything. He had done absolutely nothing… she had done it. He thought it was his fault, and this fact made her want to curl up and die. He always thought it was his fault. He didn't make me fall in love with him.
And now he wanted to do something, he wanted to fix it but he couldn't. She knew that this was one mess that couldn't be cleaned up... or magiced away, but she couldn't tell him. No, because he did not love her.
In a moment of realisation she found a very much more plausible excuse for Draco not being overly happy about her new home with Ron. He hated Ron, he didn't love her. That was it, it was just that he hated Ron, and didn't want him to be so happy.
All she wanted was to forget everything going on in her head right now. At least it might be a little bit easier to forget about loving Draco if he didn't love her back.
Ron loved her back.
"C-could you r-read me something?" her voice cracked.
Read her something. He smiled to himself. He remembered what she had done, that night that he had broken down infront of her. She had read to him.
But he couldn't read to her, he couldn't read well. He couldn't read books, stories. Not to himself, and certainly not out loud. And anyway, he had no books with him.
The notebook.
He had his notebook. It was lying under the tree a few yards away from him. It would be easy to read his own writing, his own notes. But did he want to? Did he want to share these personal thoughts with anyone? Even if they were simply stupid scribbles? It wasn't just anyone, though. She was the only person in the world he would share them with.
"Okay Hermione, come on."
He led her over to the tall maple tree where he had sat and wrote.
She leaned into him and he wrapped his arm around her.
Hermione shook, her whole body was shaking. When she needed an escape, when she needed to disappear for a while – she would read. But the thought of being away from Draco right now, the thought of leaving him… just so she could start to forget him, it seemed like walking into eternal darkness. She would start forgetting tomorrow. Tomorrow she would pretend like everything was normal again, that she didn't love him, and that the only one for her was Ron. Tomorrow. For now, she just wanted to sit with Draco under the maple tree and be next to him.
"I see a bird." He started reading, his voice taking her away, yet holding her down. She was away from the world, but she was right here with Draco.
"It's slipping in and out of my vision as I write. The sky is a canvas and the bird is the paintbrush. It's diving… swooping. It's free. It's beautiful. It has endless possibilities, infinite opportunities. It can escape my eyes anytime it decides. It can run away from this park, this city, this world. It can dive and swoop on a different landscape everyday, watched by different eyes. Watched by different people, in a different place, with different lives. It never watches us though, it's too busy using the world as a canvas, painting a picture. Free."
Her eyelids fluttered closed.
"I see dust. It's swirling, it looks like glitter in the sun. The window's open, the light's coming trough the dirty pane. Glittering, dancing, dust."
She was smiling slightly, a smile that re-assured him he was doing okay. He wasn't sure if he could do it, if he could comfort someone. But he was doing okay.
"I see cars and buses and taxi's. I see people. They're rushing, they're laughing. Some look worried, some look bored. Some are alone and some are not. I see them walk past. I see them not noticing. Not noticing the man in the grey woollen hat with the blue fingertips, or his ratty haired dog that loyally sits at his feet, beside the empty coffee cup. Or the old woman with the withered hands clutching heavy shopping bags, her ankles about to give way. No one helps, they are pretending now – to not notice."
"I see-" He paused, and looked down at Hermione, her eyes were closed, her breathing steady. She was asleep. Dried tear stains looked like fading scars on her cheeks, fast asleep. His arm tightened around her. She was so vulnerable, so innocent. She lay in his arms, fast asleep in a remote corner of the universe, and no one cared. No one except Draco. He held her to him, held her close. He wanted to keep her safe from everything. He held her close and dropped a silent, whispered kiss onto the top of her brown hair. No one noticed, no one cared – or maybe they were just pretending not to.
He continued reading.
"I see a girl with sun in her hair. She is walking, her arms swinging by her sides and her legs unsteady. Her feet are taking her further away from me with every step. I see this girl, the girl I love, and I want my feet to follow her. I'd follow her anywhere."
That was the last entry in his book, but he continued talking anyway.
"I see a girl with tear scarred cheeks. I want to know what's going on, the reason for the scars.
I see a girl with a heart so big it could hold the moon, her eyes like stars.
I see a girl sleeping, her mind not here, her head full of dreams. I wonder if I'm ever in them – or if I reside simply in the nightmares. I've fallen in love with the sleeping girl. I never want to let her go. I never want to leave her."
Hermione's eyelids fluttered.
"I wonder if she knows… She's always my best dream, and my worst nightmare."
Then she woke up. She was lying in her dorm, in her bed, and Ginny was lying across from her, reading a small yellow book with old Celtic writing on the cover.
"Ginny… what-?" she grumbled.
"He brought you back about an hour ago. Carried you, he said you fell asleep by the lake? Seamus let him into the common room."
Hermione frowned. Had he carried her back? Surely that would have hurt him. If she had known that she would wake up without him then she never would have fallen asleep.
"Did he… say anything? Before he left?"
Ginny blinked, "He, well he asked me to tell you that he-"
Hermione's breath caught in her throat.
"That you weren't heavy at all so don't even start to worry about it. He said that's what friends are for." Ginny chuckled.
Her heart fell. Now began the forgetting. She wouldn't allow herself to love him any more. Not if he didn't love her, and not while she was absolutely in love with Ron.
Her wrist watch read half past ten, and her head felt heavy. She was starving, but way too tired to get up and go to the kitchens.
"Okay. I'm just going to go back asleep then Gin. Night."
"Night Hermione."
She rolled over, pulling the blankets high around her ears.
Dreaming
He was running away. She wanted to catch him. He was going to run right off the cliff, she had to catch him, drag him back if she had too, away from the edge.
"DRACO! STOP! PLEASE WAIT!"
It felt like running under water. He was all too close to falling, to never coming back.
Her feet pounded the ground and her heart thudded in her ears. She couldn't catch him, there wasn't going to be enough time.
"DRACO! STOP! STOP I LOVE YOU!"
He turned, he stopped, he was right at the edge.
"Hermione? Is that you?"
"IT'S ME! DRACO IT'S ME I LOVE YOU COME BACK!"
"HERMIONE!" he called, his voice desperate and joyful, his feet started moving towards her. And then it happened in slow motion. He fell, fell backwards, his arms flailing.
"NO!" she screamed, trying with all her might to reach him, to save him from falling off the cliff.
"NO DRACO NO!"
"HERMIONE HELP!"
She couldn't. She couldn't reach him, he was falling. Her hands reached for his and almost touched them, her fingertips ghosted his before he fell, he was gone, he was never coming back.
"DRACO!" she screamed, her voice breaking. "I-I love you."
On her knees. She was screaming. On her back. Bellatrix was standing over her.
Screaming, pain, hurt, agony, terror. He was gone…. He was gone.
And then she woke, her heart thudding manically, a cold sweet taking over her body as she flailed in the tangle of sheets. It was dark, too dark.
"Lumos!" she whispered in a panic, and her wand tip ignited on the bedside table beside her. She reached for it and held it, trying to steady her breathing and wiping tears from her hot checks.
She felt disgusting and sweaty, her body ached and her mouth tasted of metal.
She had dreamed of him, of him falling, of him never being there again. She couldn't bare it, the thought of him hurting, of him dying.
It wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare. She loved him, and she couldn't deny it. It wasn't going to leave, it wasn't going to die out, or be forgotten. For years Draco Malfoy himself had been the nightmare, now her nightmare consisted of losing him.
With her feet dragging, she walked to the showers and let the water wake her up slowly. She stood underneath the hot spray for longer than was necessary and wished with all her might that she wasn't in love with him. She didn't want, more than anything, to hurt Ron. Because she loved him too.
Draco scowled at his reflection. The doom was dark, he had just left Hermione back in her dorm. Her face had been calm as he carried her, peaceful, beautiful. He wanted nothing more than for her to wake, to wrap her arms around her neck and whisper that she loved him, then kiss him softly. But she didn't. She slept, she didn't wake, and he left her under the watchful eye of Ginny Weasel…Weasley.
He scowled and wondered, for the first time in his life, if he wasn't actually a handsome devil. He had always believed himself to be on the right side of looks, but now this opinion faltered. Maybe if he was better looking, or his hair was more luscious, Hermione might see him clearer. Maybe then she would see what they could be together – happy, wonderful. Or maybe (and he didn't like thinking about this option) maybe Hermione saw him as ugly because of his personality. Maybe she saw him as Pansy had not, as any of the girls he had been with had not. Maybe she saw him as a person, overall, and it was him - his personality - that made him ugly to her.
He scowled at himself, and then climbed into bed. Maybe one day he'd wake up and this would all just be a dream. On second thoughts, he didn't think he'd like that. He was way too in love with this nightmare.
A/N:
I'm sorry 'cause I'm probably going to start rambling now but I just want to say:
I hope you guys don't think this is happening too fast. I'm trying to keep it slow, to keep them falling for each other at a good, safe pace … but it's hard :P I just want to start posting the chapters where the story behind everything is revealed.
This story actually does have a bigger plot than them simply falling in love. It isn't going to be simple, and not just because Hermione loves Ron.
(I love Ron! – insert me crying-)
Draco really does think he is messed up and some stuff that I kind of wish he didn't have to go through is going to happen, but then again, I'm the one putting him through this so I can't complain too much. Anyway – all does not fall in perfect concentric circles of roses for Hermione or Draco and I really can't wait to start posting the chapters where things really start to make some more sense. A lot of the stuff that's happened is vital though, and I need to get the vital information out there before the 'fun' starts. I feel sadistic. Mwahaha. Anyway, I'm rambling, sorry.
Thank you so much to the reviewersKat, LUNA GURLZ, ArtsyTigs, and renatafbarros. I really genuinely appreciate that you guys took the time to give me some feedback! Reviews make me more motivated, and I love checking and finding out that I've got a new one! Your opinions matter so much to me.
Thanks to all the people who followed and favourited too, because I really didn't think anyone was even going to read this and it's blown me away that people actually are. Thanks! I love you all!
Please review.
I'll update soon (: