A Hundred Storms

by arielx

Desperate for normality after the final battle, Hermione returns to Hogwarts to finish her education. As part of his probation for acts during the war, Draco must return as well. The war may be over, but the storm is only beginning. Confused and broken, they begin to heal where their story began.

39. Rewrite this Story

A Hundred Storms

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Rewrite this Story

How long can I stay
Lost without a way to rewrite
I wish I could rewrite this story
Change every word of every line
Write any story but mine
Someone tell me when
Can I start again
And rewrite this story
How long can I stay
Lost without a way to rewrite
I wish I could rewrite this story
- Rewrite this Story, from SMASH.

Hermione smiled lazily at Draco over the dinner table. Their week was nearing the end. They picked up Hermione's new Muggle entertainment set earlier that day and Hermione wasted no time introducing Draco to some of the films Stephan and Pat included. It was comforting to have people who understood what they were going through, to an extent, and even more so to have those people so ready to help them. Hermione would forever treasure the memory of Draco watching Belle fall in love with the Beast and cheering Ariel on as she fought for her prince. It was almost surreal, the way Draco just seemed to magically appreciate all the things that Hermione still held dear to her Muggle life, but at the same time fit snugly into the life she chose for herself. It was almost too magical.

"I still can't believe you convinced me to skip the final week of classes before holiday break," Hermione commented casually as she finished her meal. She wiped her mouth and placed the cloth napkin on the table before she stood. "But even more surprising is how much I didn't mind missing it."

Draco grinned through a mouthful of chicken. He covered up his face with his napkin as he chewed and swallowed. "You say the word and we're on our way back here, or we could stay the rest of break" he told her as he stood to meet her.

"I don't think Harry could handle that much time with Crookshanks," Hermione laughed and then grew serious. "And no more cutting class," she narrowed her eyes at a weak attempt at acting stern. "I still want to be able to pass my N.E.W.T."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Granger, you could give that exam at this point," he said with some exasperation.

"Hardly," Hermione replied with a trace of worry in her voice. "Everything was turned upside down. I know they ended up waiving the exam for the seventh years last year but they're still important to me. There's a reason guidelines are in place, why we get graded."

"You could have any career you want," Draco told her matter-of-factly. "More than that, just about any position in the Ministry would bend over backward to recruit you. Even if you set your exam on fire during testing they would give you full marks and commend you on your tenacity."

Hermione shrugged. "I told you why I needed to come back to Hogwarts," she said. "Nothing has changed."

"I know what you said," Draco acknowledged, all traces of sarcasm gone. "But I still don't know why you feel that way. Why do you feel like you don't deserve all the things you could have? Why do you shy away from all that you have earned?"

"Because I didn't earn it!" Hermione exclaimed, then took a breath. "Drop it, Malfoy."

"Hermione," Draco said cautiously, dropping subjects simply wasn't something Draco was known for. "You helped save the world. I don't know why I have to keep telling you this. That's not a dramatic play on words or a Gryffindor pep talk, that's Merlin's honest truth. You. Saved. The. World. Potter wouldn't have made it without you. We wouldn't be here right now, I wouldn't be here if you didn't exist. I don't know why you try to downplay what you went through. It's not right. It's not the way the world should know you. It's not the way you should know yourself."

"That's not the way I see it," Hermione shrugged.

"Why?" Draco asked and put his hands on both of her shoulders. "Why in Merlin's name do you feel anything less than extraordinary?"

Hermione gave her head a swift shake, as if to jostle the words that she needed to speak. She didn't feel extraordinary because she wasn't, why couldn't Draco see that?

"I had this same fight with Ron," Hermione told Draco pointedly. "It's a matter of history, really. You grew up with magical servants and toy broom sticks, I grew up with films and pedal bikes. Your world and my world are so significantly different. When Dumbledore came to my house and told me I was special, it wasn't that I was suddenly capable and just like that I could make these things happen at will. I knew then that I had to prove myself, I had to be better than the best because Dumbledore also told us that I would be going to school with other students who grew up knowing they were just like me. But they weren't like me at all, not really. There were students who actually knew things. Students like you, students like Ron. Muggle-borns are actually really rare. Most Hogwarts students had at least one parent who told them what was happening when they were turing their mother's slippers into mice, but I was a scared little girl. What was the first uncontrolled magic you did without realizing it?"

The question took Draco by surprise. He was so absorbed about this upbringing he couldn't fathom to imagine that he was unprepared to speak.

"Erm," he said cautiously. "I'm not sure," he bought some time. "I think I lit one of the tapestries on fire," he finally said. "Or maybe the time I made the dishes fly out of Dobby's hands and crash to pieces on the wall. Or there was the one time I turned all my mother's books to goo because I wanted her to read my books to me?"

"See?" Hermione asked him with a sad smile. "I can tell you every single time I did a piece of emotional magic before Dumbledore came because each and every time I was terrified because I knew deep down it was me. That's why my parents don't want me in their life anymore and that's why I can't even make one of my best friends understand me. I'm afraid that after this honeymoon period is over you're going to realize the same thing. Muggle-borns are not an inferior blend of wizard, but we simply don't grow up the same way you do, I don't have the same experiences you do. It doesn't come down to magical capability because I'm not modest enough to say that I'm average. I know I can exceed expectations on my studies because I put the effort in, but that doesn't excuse the years I lost growing up not knowing what I could do. Maybe all my knowledge is simply the drive to prove myself. I'm not extraordinary, Draco, I'm motivated."

She thought back to the last year, the last seven years, and she understood that she had been through some incredible things, but so many outcomes were due to luck. It took a lot of working together to get Harry, Ron, and Hermione to where they were today. Ever since the Philosopher's Stone, Hermione felt like she was part of a team or machine rather than an individual. Her value was a direct result of how the rest of the machine worked.

That train of thought brought her to when the machine was missing a piece of what made them work. Hermione then crumbled a little when she remembered Ron leaving them.

"Hermione?" Draco's voice was panicked now. "Are you alright?"

"Not always," Hermione's voice was soft as she found herself back in another time.

"Then GO!" roared Harry. "Go back to them, pretend you're got over your spattergroit and Mummy'll be able to feed you up and-"
Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner's pocket, Hermione had raised her own.ﾠ

"Prestego!" she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and Harry on the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Harry and Ron glared from either side of the transparent barrier as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time. Harry felt a corrosive hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between them.ﾠ
"Leave the Horcrux," Harry said.ﾠ
Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair. He turned to Hermione.ﾠ
"What are you doing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you staying, or what?"
"I . . ." She looked anguished. "Yes." yes, I'm staying. Ron, we said we'd go with Harry, we said we'd help."ﾠ
"I get it. You choose him."ﾠ

"Ron, no, please, come back, come back!"ﾠ
She was impeded by her own Shield Charm; by the time she had removed it he had already stormed into the night. Harry stood quite still and silent, listening to her sobbing and calling Ron's name amongst the trees.ﾠ
After a few minutes she returned, her sopping hair plastered to her face.ﾠ
"He's g-g-gone! Disapparated!"ﾠ
She threw herself into a chair, curled up, and started to cry.ﾠ
But today Hermione wasn't crying anymore. Today Hermione knew what she was capable of, but strength didn't siphon off the sadness she felt. Sadness was the villain here, "He left us...just like that..." Hermione muttered.

Draco was at a loss for words. Who left who? What was Hermione talking about?

"Just gone..."

"Are you talking about Weasley?" Draco finally asked. "Are you talking about Ron?"

"He left us," Hermione nodded sadly. "I couldn't prevent it. He just left."

"Hermione," Draco started cautiously leaned down to her level. "You're not where you were a year ago. Weas...Ron came back, don't you remember?"

Hermione shook her head. "You don't understand," she said again.

"Then why don't you make me?" Draco challenged with a smile he hoped came across as kind.

"It's not that I'm a mudblood," Hermione said with her hands up when Draco began to object. "It's that I was born into a muggle family with a muggle upbringing. I never considered mudblood to be a derogatory term anymore than I considered any muggle racist term to be more than a weak adjective meant to hurt people. I'm just saying that I came into Hogwarts at a disadvantage and I want to leave it knowing I did everything I could to smash that disadvantage. I want future muggle-borns to come into Hogwarts knowing that if they put the work in they can achieve anything they want."

"You seem to be missing something," Draco said dryly. "The Dark Lord is not coming back. "You are a one in a million, one in a hundred million."

"That's not the point," Hermione argued. "It's not that I went to Hogwarts ready to go hand to hand with some evil wizard, I started school at Hogwarts scared as all Merlin, and I wish I could save future muggle-borns from that. But even that wasn't enough. Draco..."

"Yes?" Draco asked, his eyebrow cocked in confusion. He didn't understand where Hermione was going.

"Ron left," Hermione looked up at him as she shook his hands off. "He was one of my best friends. He and Harry. Ron left. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"I always knew Weasley was an idiot," Draco said with a shrug. "I don't know what else there is to it."

"He realized I was no better than any other witch or wizard," Hermione whispered. "He realized I really was just a know-it-all. He knew that since our first year."

Draco stopped suddenly. "Ron left because he was weak," Draco said seriously. "He couldn't handle the fact that you and Potter could tackle The Dark Lord on your own and he was insecure. From what you've told me he has always been insecure. I mean, I knew it, I capitalized on it, but him taking it out on you is not forgivable to me."

"Ron knew what we were getting into," Hermione argued. "More than Harry and I knew. His parents were involved in the first war, he was the best equipped to set us straight."

"That doesn't excuse him from leaving," Draco shot back. "And I feel like a hypocrite because I obviously was just days or weeks from coming face to face with the lot of you then, but his actions obviously have left an imprint on you."

"I don't want you to realize that you're in over your head," Hermione said gently. "This whole week, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for you to realize just how unknowledgeable I am. Maybe that's selfish because I've been having such a good time. But when you're faced with the hardest things life can bring you, won't you go back to the comfort of what you know? And what you know is not always going to be what I know. I hoped to avoid this conversation indefinitely, but how do you know this is right? How can you claim what you know is the same way I think?"

"Granger...Hermione, I'm trying to follow you here, I really am." Draco scrambled to find the right words. "I don't know anything about how you think or what it is that makes you tick. That's not because your parents come from a different background than my parents, it's because we're two different people. No one knows how another person looks at things. I can tell you this, however. Less than a year ago I was in prison. Wizard prison isn't exactly something you take lightly. I hated you a year ago and yet here we are right now..."

Draco disregarded his breeding and stepped forward to take her in his arms. She barely grazed his shoulder but she buried her face into the fabric of his shirt.

"Why don't you hate me anymore?" Hermione asked him with foreign edge to her voice.

"Is this conversation back to Hogwarts?" Draco asked lightly.

"I wish I could rewrite my story," Hermione admitted. "I'd make myself a half-blood or something. I feel like if I wasn't muggle-born we would have stayed together, a team, a machine."

"With Harry and Ron? But you're not," Draco argued. "A team, I mean. Doesn't a team see it through to the end?"

"That's what you don't understand," Hermione shoot back. "We were always a team until he left. Sure, the locket preyed on our weaknesses, but isn't that the problem? There would be no weakness if I wasn't a muggle-born."

"Hermione," Draco said slowly. "You told me that the locket fed on your darkest insecurities. Why isn't that the same for Weasley? Surely his deepest insecurity isn't who your parents are. His insecurities were and are about how he sees himself."

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked earnestly. "Are our darkest insecurities not part of who we are and how we think?"

"He came back," Draco argued again without really knowing why. "Doesn't that mean anything?"

Draco couldn't imagine why he tried comforting Hermione about her boyfriend leaving them. Good riddance to bad rubbish was Draco's frame of mind and he understood the story from before. Ronald Weasley leaving them when they needed to stay together had eaten Hermione up to the point that she couldn't even understand herself or what she had given to their world for the past seven years.

Draco saw red. His vision blurred and he wanted nothing more than to twist Ronald Weasley's neck until it gave under Draco's hands.

Instead he took Hermione's shoulders in his hands and gently turned her until she wrapped her arms around his neck and was holding on to him. Her lithe body was shaking in a way he didn't understand until he realized her hands had balled into fists. Hermione was furious, but Draco couldn't figure out why. Perhaps even she didn't know why. He could feel her body spasming against his as he tried to figure out what she needed to hear and what he could give her without an out right lie.

"Hermione, you're stronger than this," Draco finally said gently. "You've come a long way since we came back to school. Is it really Ron you're upset with, or is it me?"

Draco didn't realize what he was asking until the words were out of his mouth, but at the same terrifying time he knew he needed to know if what he said to her in their youth had stayed with her through the years.

Hermione started at his words. She opened her mouth to argue with him, but then mulled over what he meant. It was true that Ron, in his leaving, left a hole in their trio that his reappearance didn't fully fill. Hermione had come to accept that and even after they broke up she couldn't rationalize why she was so angry at everything.

"I think you still have some unfinished business with Weasley," Draco said softly into her hair. "There's still a lot of hurt there, more hurt than you realize."

"I don't have those feelings for him," Hermione argued.

"I'm not saying you do," Draco assured her and rubbed his right hand up and down her back while his other arm held her tight. "I'm saying that something is unresolved. It doesn't have to be romantic, but it's still hurting you, and it's hurting us. You don't trust me because he left you and you think that because Weasley and I were brought up in a similar way that I'm going to do the same thing. I wouldn't blame you for not trusting me, but I think the real issue is that you don't trust pure-bloods."

Hermione lifted her head from his shoulder and gaped at him. "I...no. No...I don't care about that."

"You do care," Draco argued "But you're also in pain. You need to let go of that pain and I don't know how to help you. I don't think I can. But Weasley can. You need to talk to him about what happened last year."

"I don't want to talk about that," Hermione shook her head. "That's the past."

"Obviously not," Draco countered. "Or you would not be feeling so hurt. You're stronger than this, Hermione."

But Hermione was done pretending. She didn't want to pretend she was stronger for it all. She couldn't pretend the sadness was gone anymore. Hermione didn't want to.

"Why don't I hate you?" Draco repeated her words. "I don't hate you because there is absolutely nothing about you to hate. I hated how you beat me in all our classes and I hated how my father would react when I couldn't match grades with a muggle-born. I hated how Potter could beat me at Quidditch and that just stemmed to you because you were in Gryffindor and you were his friend. Things change. People change. I'm back at Hogwarts and out of prison because of you. My father is currently decomposing in one of our family crypts. Potter freed me from a lifetime of servitude or death. I like being alive now. I enjoy living. I don't enjoy seeing you so torn up about something that I planted the seeds for when we were twelve. I've given you very little reason to trust me, but please believe me when I say that I'm in love with you, Hermione Granger. You saved my life and made it worth living again. I plan on spending the rest of my life making up for what I have done to you and I don't know if it will ever be enough, but I won't leave you. If that's what you're worried about then you need to understand I am a very determined man and I will make it my life's mission to prove you wrong."

Hermione inhaled deeply and tried to rein in her haggard emotions.

"I believe you," she looked up to him and managed a watery smile.

"Do you?" Draco challenged.

"Lest you forget," Hermione replied, feeling her spirit soaring. "You've already made it your life's mission to prove me wrong since we were eleven. This way, I think I might actually benefit."

Draco barked out a deep laugh and pulled her against his chest. Hermione wrapped her arms around his waist and inhaled deeply against his shirt.

"This was supposed to be a lighthearted goodbye breakfast," she mumbled into the fabric. "What happened?"

"We gave into our theatrics," Draco said. "You and I, we're quite a pair."

"I'm beginning to see that, now," Hermione agreed. "Will you ease up on my career choices now?"

"No," Draco said and hugged her tighter to him. "Because I know you're wrong. You deserve castles and holidays and ten libraries on top of an excellent career of your choosing. I can easily provide the castles, holidays, and libraries, but you need to work on understanding what you deserve. You're going to crush the N.E.W.T.S. and wizards and witches from all corners of the earth are going to try to recruit you. Expect it. I want to see what magic you come up with, Granger. I want to be there when you create it."

(A/N) It didn't take 6 months to post this time! Thank you so much for the heartfelt reviews. I do love this story so much. I have the next chapter started, involving Harry, because I thought it would fit in with this chapter but Draco and Hermione got carried away =) Thank you for sticking with me. Please let me know what you think, and as always, find me on Tumblr as arielxwriter.