Ravenclaw, Short, "This feels like goodbye.", WC: 1404
AU: Disclaimer for the non-canon-compliantness.
I apologise for the quality of this. Hermione and Draco, and their almost true love.
0-0-0-0
"You're still up," he says, walking into the lounge where the TV is silently blaring colour into the otherwise dark room. My head tilts upward to glance at his tired face. I don't move too much, exhausted enough after waiting. It feels as though I'm always waiting at the moment. Draco watches me for a few seconds, his eyes dark from tiredness and the shadow in the room. He watches a couple of seconds of the violent fighting on the movie before speaking again. "You didn't have to. You waited up every other night."
"I know," I murmur, turning back to the TV. Action movies are oddly comforting when I reach this level of tiredness - emotional or otherwise. "Are you going straight up to bed? Or do you -?" My question remains unanswered as he wipes a pale hand over his pale features. "Go to bed, Draco."
He doesn't pause, just as he hasn't every night since taking this new job. He presses a kiss to my forehead, and leaves me with my second Marvel movie of the evening. It hurts. Of course. But at least I know that he's safe. That's what I stay awake to know. If I had gone up to bed, I would lay awake and worry, and continue to listen out for the sounds of him coming home, or the sounds of the door cracking open, or the clacking sounds of his trudging footsteps on the wooden floorboards of the hallway.
When the film is over, I stumble upstairs to bed and slink in between the sheets. Draco wraps an arm around me almost unconsciously. I know he's very nearly asleep as he whispers words of love, slipping deeper into slumber. I don't have time to mutter them back to him. As usual, my sleep is halfway between restless and non-existent, tossing and turning in his too-warm embrace and the too-soft bedding that veers on uncomfortable. Stress keeps me awake most nights anyway, with the loud noises having distracted me for long enough. I feel like I don't even know Draco anymore, and yet he's in my house, in my bed, holding me in his cold arms.
In the morning, I wake up to a steaming mug of tea and a scrap of parchment.
Draco's scrawling, perfect handwriting is rushed in a short goodbye. The gesture is sweet, but it's not well-received. In fact, it makes my eyes tear-up in desperate frustration.
I work from home during the day, too exhausted to go into the office. Later, I make pasta bake for dinner (just me, again), ignoring the purple beneath my eyes. Draco is only one movie late tonight, harassed. He throws his tie onto the settee as the opening credits for Deadpool appear on the screen. I pause the television, attention geared to him.
"What's the matter?" I ask.
"Nothing," he replies shortly and disappears to make a warm drink. I shrug to myself, pressing play on the TV again. Again, the slightly over-dramatic scenes jar me into thinking more directly, while Draco batters around in the kitchen. "I'm going up to bed."
"Fine."
Instead of the usual immediate reaction, he pauses this time. He waits for a second response – one he certainly isn't going to get. I continue watching the television, on the edge and almost hoping for some kind of reaction from him. Silence. It's almost deafening. He raises one hand, as if to make a point, and lets it fall again to his side. I turn to look at him. I don't want to be the one to break first; to actually admit to a problem.
"Something wrong?" he asks.
"Just tired, Draco."
"Are you going to stay up and watch the movie?"
"Maybe. Are you going to join me?"
At a second impasse of the evening, he pauses again. It's then that I realise we're not on an even footing at all. We're barely even standing. Then he nods, and asks to sit beside me. So, I make the room for him, pushed flush against him and not sure whether I hate it. I love him, of course, but it's… I don't know. It's different. Turns out Deadpool was very much the wrong movie to watch as a couple on the rocks. It ends up being a bit too much about love to prevent me from feeling sentimental. The movie ends with me in existential crisis and Draco half-asleep.
"I can't do this," I murmur to myself, almost hoping that he hears.
"What?"
"I'm sorry," I say, sitting up straighter. "I need a break." He still looks confused, and it pushes me onwards to my next speech. "I need a break from you – from us."
"But… What?" Draco rubs his eyes to remove the tiredness from them. "Where is this coming from?" The credits start rolling on the screen. He looks surprised that the film is over. "Is this about the job? I can't do it any different. It's the way the admin is orientated, you know that."
I nod in response, murmuring, "It's just so difficult." He is silent. The lamp is a little too bright all of a sudden. "Do you know what it's like to wait up every night, just so I know that you're safe?" My throat closes up, but the next words are out. "I need a break."
"Hermione - I know a little bit what it's like," he objects, pointlessly. I shake my head. "With the war, and hoping that you were fine. Waiting for word, every night."
"It's different -"
"It's really not," Draco argues. "Where does this leave me?" he asks, rubbing a hand over his face. We're not so close anymore, and he moves even further from me, as if configuring exactly what is being said. "What... What do you want? I love you, Hermione. I want you to be happy."
"I know," I shush. "I know. And, right now, I'm not."
Draco Malfoy's face falls, nose tipped forward and eyes dropped to the floor.
"I'm sorry."
Heat flushes to my cheeks, my neck, and my eyes. They sting painfully. I don't want to cry. But here we are, having watching this ridiculously violent romance, feeling the emotions a little bit too much. He rubs a hand over his face again, struck with the power of the word. The stress has just been mounting over all of this time. It's too much. Far too much now. I don't want to hurt him.
"I can't be the only half in a relationship of two halves. I can't be the only one present, it doesn't work like that," I tell him, moving to take his hand. He just nods, swallowing hard. "I never see you. We don't speak. I'm so tired, I can hardly function."
"I could quit," he suggests.
"No. You worked for this. You worked so hard, Draco."
"But if I'm going to sacrifice you, I don't -"
"The job won't be there to come back to. I will," I reason.
We stay like this for a while, both thinking over the terrifying logistics I appear to be suggesting. He can live at his house. We won't see each other for a couple of months. So we can allow our lives to sort themselves out before we can come back to each other. We can allow things to settle before we can settle into a real life relationship. In the morning, he packs quickly, taking the floo to his house. It feels oddly bare without his stuff lying around. I guess that I forgot that this house is part-lived-in by him as well. T-shirts that went astray, parchments filled with important information, and Draco's mild personality in the intricacies of home.
"I love you," I tell him finally, as he stands in the fireplace. "This will be good for us."
"This feels like goodbye."
"It's not."
Months later, I find myself passing him on the street. There's this one moment where... But it was nothing. We just pass on the street, waiting for our moment.
0-0-0-0
Thanks all!
