Hermione's Point of View
On the landing, I run into Tonk's leaving the bedroom with a silent smile playing at the corner of her mouth. She observes me and allows the smile to fully form.
"How did it go?" she asks, her voice fading when she notices my expression.
"That bad?" she presses.
I try to clear my thoughts, but the word Tuesday seems to repeat like a broken record. Skipping and fading in and out, bouncing around the walls inside my head. It's making me uncomfortable. The oversized clothes I had fished out from the wardrobe in the bedroom feel tight all of a sudden. Chaffing around my neck as I feel a rivulet of sweat run down my rib cage.
"Hermione are you okay, dear? You don't look the best," she notes, placing the back of her hand against my forehead. It's cool like my mother's hands always were. I imagine her face, not as clear as it used to be in my head.
"You're burning up."
I pull on the collar of the jumper I'm wearing, and it feels coarse between my fingers. Unwashed and stale.
"They said Tuesday, Tonks. We leave again on Tuesday."
"Oh." Her voice is low, but unsurprised at the news. Perhaps she knew. Perhaps everyone else knew before I did.
"What am I meant to say to him?" I panic, pointing towards the bedroom.
"The truth, I guess. What else is there to say?"
"He won't like the truth."
"He'll dislike a lie more," she remarks. I feel my hands turn clammy as my thoughts jump from one disjointed approach to another. My stomach churns painfully and my vision seems to narrow in just on Tonk's face, the rest around her slipping away into a blackness. I clutch onto the banister for support trying to blink away the darkness.
"Hermione!" Tonk's calls but her voice is diluted, filtered through several brick walls travelling very slowly towards me. I watch the colour of her hair disappear and until she returns, I see nothing but darkness before a brightness steps in front of my eye line.
"Granger," the voice travels towards me from a long echoing tunnel. I feel a weight on my arm. Smooth as it moves up from my wrist to hold my elbow. It is touching me, but it feels strange. Numb as if it's touching someone else's arm or a phantom arm. Words are being spoken but I'm not sure if they're directed at me or not. They hang around the shadows that have stolen my vision and prod and poke at me, beckoning for a response. I'm not ready to speak yet.
"Granger, look at me," the voice demands, shaking me. I turn towards the new brightness and a face I recognise materialises. I reach forward and a hand pulls my face close to a warm chest. I inhale deeply. It smells familiar. Is this all happening inside my head only? Are these people really here I wonder.
"It's okay Tonk's I've got it from here. Let's go Granger I want to show you something," the voice says. I feel myself become weightless for a minute before a cold breeze tosses my hair into the air.
"Breathe deeply for a moment Granger. It will pass, okay?" the voice assures. I wait, closing my eyes and as instructed by the voice I breathe in and out slowly. The cool air dries the sweat that had started on my chest and seems to loosen my clothes. When I open my eyes, the world has its colour again and Malfoy appears, his head tilted in concern.
"Thank you," I say, blushing, wiping the last bit of darkness away from my eyes. It wants to linger a while longer, but the cool air pushes it away.
"Walk with me," he comments, his tone sombre and low. He takes a few steps away from Grimmauld Place and I stare after him in trepidation for a moment before jogging to catch up with him.
"You should really be resting Malfoy."
He doesn't respond. Instead, he takes my arm and slides his hand down towards my wrist, his two fingers sliding down into my palm. It feels familiar and chases away the last remnants of panic.
We walk in silence for a while listening to the sound of the birds singing their songs as they follow us along the rooftops of the townhouses. We walk out of the estate and up to the field where we had apparated to go to Bill and Fleur's house. The birds disappear as the clouds turn dark overhead. Off to hide somewhere safe for a while. Obvious to the ways of the world. We walk that long path we had walked the night before he disappeared for three weeks. Now I will be the one disappearing, but it will be for longer than three weeks.
At the top of the hill, close to the apparition point he stops, dropping my wrist from his grip. My head has cleared back to normal now, but it doesn't stop the fear building in my chest about the conversation we must have now. The conversation I have dreaded since bringing him back to Grimmauld Place.
"How are you feeling now?"
"Better. Thank you for helping," I say. He paces a little ahead of me, looking back at the townhouses down the hill.
"Malfoy," I start but he raises his hand to stop me. Holding his hand on the back of his neck he chuckles.
"I'm not ready to hear it, Granger. Give me a minute," he urges, kicking at the loose earth. I purse my lips together to stop them from quivering.
"I'm not ready to say it," I supply. He laughs again. "How did you know?" I inquire. He chuckles again.
"One look at your face and it was obvious, Granger," he responds. I groan and step up a little on the hill to stand beside him. The silence is almost deafening until eventually, he turns towards me. Resolve solidifying on his face.
"When?"
I stare up at his face and wonder did mine look like that back at Hogwarts when I asked him the same question. When I inquired about the thing he had to do, unaware at the time of the severity of the task that he had been given. I reply in kind.
"Soon." He smirks a little in response, catching on.
"Do we only have just right now?" he asks, mimicking the questions I had asked him so long ago. I follow along.
"We only ever have just right now, Malfoy." His smirk grows.
"The way you reacted back there was pretty intense, Granger. Was that because you had to tell me or because you knew you had to go back on the road again?" he inquires as if he knows the one question I'm not prepared to answer. I turn my eyes away from him. Hoping that by hiding them he won't be able to read the answer on my face. Grant me some privacy from the only pair of eyes that could ever truly read me. Perhaps even the only ones that ever took the time to really inquire.
"I don't know how to answer that Malfoy."
"It's relatively simple actually, Granger. You just have to pick between the two options I gave," he responds.
"You know it's not that easy, Malfoy."
"You're just making it difficult because you're trying to avoid being honest with yourself."
"Please, don't," I beg, exhausted from the entire conversation with Ron and Seamus.
"I don't want to fight with anyone else. Can we do this later?" I inquire and he weighs this up.
"Do we have a 'later'?" he asks.
"We have time, Malfoy. I promise," I reply.
He huffs, shuffling his feet in the mud.
"Time is relative, Granger. Isn't that what they say?"
I lament and turn my attention back towards the vacant townhouses at the end of the street. If I decided to follow the birds in there, windows broken surely by hooligans, and just disappear inside for a while. How long would it take anyone to notice I was gone and start looking for me? Could I allow that time for myself? To try and compartmentalise my thoughts. To just freeze everything and everyone around me for a moment so I can get my bearings. I need time to write it all down and think. I'm good at that aspect of things. Putting pen to paper and finding a solution.
"What do you want from me?" he asks, interrupting my rambling thoughts. I turn away from the townhouses, putting aside the notion to run away and hide with the birds for a while.
"What do you mean? I'm not looking for anything from you," I answer.
"No," he argues, placing his hands down heavy on my shoulders, setting my feet sliding a little in the mud.
"What do you need me to say? What do you need me to do, Granger?" he implores. It's strange to hear his voice like this, in this tone. So, unlike him. Unlike the façade, he puts on in front of others.
"I don't need you to do anything, Malfoy," I reiterate, unsure if I'm misunderstanding. He mulls this over and seems to change his approach. His hands feel suddenly hot against my shoulders.
"If there was something you needed me to say that would sway your opinion on leaving you would tell me, right? Consider it done already," he implies firmly. I glare up at him as the rain starts lightly above us. That kind of light mist that always seems to cling on longer to you and finds its way into your warmest parts.
"Do you really think I am only leaving because of the absence of something you should have said or done? After all this time you still don't truly understand the severity of my friendship with Harry and Ron."
"I guess for me, I wouldn't expect my friends to honour a pack made when they were only eleven years old. What does a child know of the world? Of our world even," he questions.
"I understood the severity at the time. So did Ron," I explain, my tone turning harsh.
"But did you, really?" he asks, and I sigh again in response, exhausted by the questions. I let my head fall slightly forward to rest against his shoulder. It feels damp from the mist.
"If you had been able to… that day in the hallway in Hogwarts when you were following me before I left, you would have said or done the same as I am trying to do now," he argues.
"But I wasn't allowed that same chivalry, was I?"
"Well…," he starts.
"Well, nothing. Your mind was already made up about the matter," I snap.
"The situations were slightly different, Granger. You have to admit."
"So convenient you say that now," I mumble. He slips a cold finger under my chin and pulls my head up and his eyes are fierce. But past the front of annoyance, I can see the layer he's trying to shield. The panic lives somewhere in those beautiful eyes too.
"What do you think would have happened that day if I hadn't followed Bellatrix into the Great Hall? If I had chosen to stay even a minute longer with you in that hallway? It would have been nothing to her to rip apart every inch of that school to find me. The Dark Lord was waiting for us that day and there was no way I was avoiding that. I regret leaving, Granger. Don't misunderstand. But I knew that I had to. I knew what would have happened if I didn't that day."
"And you stayed so long because?" I inquire daringly. The mood in the conversation shifts so drastically that I almost physically feel it. Like the plank, I've been asked to walk suddenly contorts and ripples beneath me. His dark eyelashes open and close ever so slowly as I wait for him to respond. He smirks slightly.
"If a muggle commits a crime what happens?"
I crease my brows in confusion as I wait for his answer.
"No man - wizard or muggle, is above his penance. We must all atone in our own way," he clarifies.
"You stayed as a form of atonement?" I shout incredulously.
"In a way, yes. I mean Blaise was there and I stayed with him. I knew what I was walking into for the most part. I knew it was going to be bad and I would be banished from the manor because I had 'failed' in my father's eyes. So mainly yes. I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was, granted but yes, Granger. I stayed largely for atonement."
"Because of Dumbledore?" I ask.
"He was the eye of the storm, yes. But there were a lot of warning signs leading up to it. There were a lot of things I had done before that."
"Such as?"
"The Katie Bell incident. The one that put you in the hospital for almost a month. That fight with Potter in the bathroom when you had to go and fetch Snape. That day in the hallway with you before I left. Not telling you about any of it. There were a lot of things that I did back then that I'm not proud of. Things that I have to carry with me. I hoped time spent in that place would soften some of the guilt."
"And did it? I mean, soften some of the guilt?" I inquire.
"Not particularly, no."
I contemplate this confession for a beat, while his eyes search my face.
"In a way I guess I understand. But that was an awfully long time to spend in expiation Malfoy."
"Maybe for you, it seems that way. But you were never tasked with murdering one of the greatest wizards of our time," he replies.
There is silence then for a while. His hands on my shoulders slide down together to cup my elbows.
"When I was on the road with Harry and Ron, I would sometimes allow myself the thought of what would have happened if you had chosen to come with me that day instead. If I had just grabbed you and ran. Forced you if necessary. It seemed okay at the time to think about that because it was just a fantasy and couldn't really hurt me." I laugh quietly to myself at the absurdity of it. Malfoy grins down at me as he brushes his lips against my cheek. They're grown cold from the rain. Perhaps we should head back soon before we both freeze to death out here. What a way to go. But I can't bring myself to suggest it as the sound of the rain pattering lightly against the ground is soothing.
"It's funny you should mention that" he whispers, his lips brushing over mine.
"Hmm," I muse, lost in the feeling of his lips moving against mine as he speaks.
"Perhaps you'll understand my motives and why I did this," he whispers.
"Did what?" I whisper, leaning up closer to his mouth, being lulled towards him by his sudden dream-like voice. Finally, he captures my mouth with his and that familiar ache starts racing all around my body. Jolting in my fingertips as I run my hand up the side of his neck and back into his hair, tugging slightly on it.
A sudden movement catches my eye and I open them to see his hand raise from his coat pocket, wand out as he moves it, casting a spell. Non-verbal but I recognise the wand movement but before I can pull away his hold on my arm tightens and we're fading away, leaving behind the drizzle that was about to become a storm.
Draco's Point of View
The sun is high in the sky when we arrive, and the subtle fog takes but a second to clear before my attention turns to her. I release her elbows and slip my wand into my back pocket. Out of sight as I think of hers still back in London on that dresser table.
I wait for the anger, the revile, the sheer confusion. I wait for any emotion to come but her face is empty as her eyes move slowly around. The house sits a little bit down the hill, but I know the vineyard stretches as far as the eye can see past the dwellings. I haven't been here that long ago but so much has happened since the summer before things started with Granger and I that it feels like decades ago now. As if I have lived an almost full life between then and now.
Down the hill, the iron gate that surrounds the house is open as if expecting us. A gravel pathway leads up to the front door which is painted a darker colour since I was last here. The cottage is large but still retains some of its cosiness and rustic appeal. The large windows face the south and I look momentarily away from Granger to see if I can spot anyone moving about in the house. I don't see anyone, so I turn back to her expecting a change but she's the same. Stoic; her face not indicative that she's even aware that we're no longer in London. We're no longer in England for that matter.
I jut my hand out to catch her elbow as her knees unlock suddenly but she drops slowly to sit in the grass, folding her legs up towards her.
"Did you pass your apparition exam?" She asks, monotone.
"I don't suppose you did because if you did you would know that you need to pass an external secondary exam not given by the ministry if you wish to apparate internationally," she maunders.
"Furthermore, if you had passed those two exams you would know that any persons who apparate internationally have a trace on them," she continues. I place my hand on her arm again and she flinches back. Her eyes are far away, completely distracted.
"Granger it's okay. There's no trace on me. Any records of death eaters are wiped from the ministry. You know this. It happened at the start of the war. There's no trace on me. I promise."
"And me?"
"I cast the spell remember. The trace only attaches to the caster." She turns her gaze to me then but it's still distant, blurred like lapping water.
"You are a fine wizard, Malfoy. But I would have never attempted to apparate internationally. It is not an easy spell to cast normally. But when you try to cast it and jump a great distance such as this you put yourself and me at risk of getting spliced."
"Granger, I know how to apparate. Consider that I might just be better at certain things than you," I disagree.
"I would have never apparated to France with you without telling you first," she replies. Her tone is empty. Perhaps the shock hasn't lifted yet. I smooth the grass out before I sit down beside her on the hill. I see a figure moving in the window and I momentarily raise my arm in their direction. It looks like a woman, but they only move away from the window when they notice us sitting at the top of their property line.
"How did you know we're in France?" I question. She points slowly towards the house, her hand shaking. I take her hand and place it back on her lap gently. I try not to notice when she moves her hands away again.
"The architecture of the house," she comments.
"Ah."
"I wish to return to London now," she starts as I watch her hands move to her pockets. I wait for realisation to hit. It takes its time to find its way to her.
"Granger," I start.
"Did you plan this?" she questions furiously once she realises, she doesn't have her wand with her.
"Not entirely. The opportunity sort of presented itself to me and I took it," I explain.
"We're going back to London right now!" she demands standing up and brushing her pants off furiously.
"You were the one who said that you daydreamed about just grabbing me that day in the hallway and forcing me to go with you instead of with Bellatrix. You can't be so shocked by this Granger."
"That was a farce, Malfoy! A mere fantasy at least I was able to recognise it for what it was. I was never going to force my decision on you. That's not what people do in the real world. You have to allow other people to make decisions on their own. Me leaving with Ron and Harry is not the same as you leaving with Death Eaters!" She exclaims.
"You're walking into the same danger I was. Probably even more because you'll be with Potter. Don't you get that? I know you want to stay here, Granger. That's why I made the choice for you because you would never admit how much you wanted to leave London. I thought if I made the jump for you, you'd at least admit to it."
"Well, you thought wrong Malfoy. You should not have made this decision for me. I wish to return to London now," she says. Her tone is final as if the conversation is over with the coarse turn of her voice.
"And if I said no?" I question. She eyes me incredulously before contempt etches into her disposition.
"Don't do this, Malfoy. Not like this," she warns.
"Like what? Like you want it to be?" I argue.
"We are going back to London right this second. Don't squander the time we have left. I don't want to fight with you."
"I am not going anywhere, Granger. I told you I wasn't going to stay at Grimmauld Place. You knew that. I am going to stay here."
"Where even is here?" she inquires throwing her arms out dramatically. I notice a rivulet of sweat falls down her temple. The French sun is exhausting.
"This is Blaise's family vineyard in Chateau la Gorce," I explain.
"We need to leave, Malfoy. Please. They will notice if we're gone too long."
"They'll notice if you're gone too long," I correct her.
"Is that what this is about? You just hate my friends, so you took me away from them!"
"No, I took you away from there because the last time you were on the road you said it almost killed you. I took you away from there because I'm selfish and I don't want the only person I've ever cared about to die in some stupid war that doesn't even concern her!"
"Malfoy," she starts but I take her waist and pull her tight against me and feel the heat of her body burning against mine in the watchful sun.
"Stay here with me, Granger," I whisper into her temple. She brushes her eyes against my shirt, leaving it damp and pressed against my chest.
"Don't do it like this Malfoy. Don't make it this way," she begs, her voice hoarse.
"Do it what way?"
"Don't make this the way we say goodbye. Come back to London, please. We have a couple of days before I need to leave," she pleas.
"Stay with me," I whisper again kissing her temple. She arches her head back as I trail my tongue down her neck and suck at the sweet spot she likes. Her arms push against me suddenly and she steps back at arm's distance. Holding me there. Her face loses its discordance momentarily as her hair welters golden in the sunlight.
"I have to go back," she whispers. "I must go back now."
"How long?" I ask.
"Until Harry no longer needs me, I suppose. When the war is finally over," she contemplates.
"That idiot will always need you, Granger. He can't seem to do anything by himself and who knows how long this war will last!"
"I can't argue about this because you don't understand the relationship I have with Harry. How much I love and respect him. Malfoy, I promised him I would always be there when he needed me, and he needs me now more than ever. I can't abandon him."
"But you can abandon me?" I ask, harshly.
"That's not fair, Malfoy and you know it. Don't be petty it doesn't suit you!" she argues, wiping at the corner of her eyes again.
"Don't make me beg, Granger," I warn.
"Why is begging beneath you? Put aside your pride Malfoy and come back with me!"
"My Pride?" I yell.
"Yes, your pride that's keeping you here. Because you can't stand to be in a place where trust needs to be earned and not automatically given," she shouts.
I clench my teeth together in frustration unwillingly to admit that the comment hit a nerve.
"Are you coming back with me?" she asks after a long pause stretches between us. My anger only mounting in that absence.
I think of that place where she's always welcome and the way everyone lights up when she enters a room, and their spark diminishes the second they realise I'm right behind her. I wonder if the situations were reversed would she feel the same? Would she be able to throw away any semblance of pride and acclimate to her surroundings? As if it was as easy as just saying it.
"I can't," I say.
"You won't. There's a difference." She flattens her pants down and sighs deeply. Brushing away the last remnants of tears on her cheeks and looks around briefly. The trees are loud here as they sway in the warm breeze. I think about what it would be like here with her. The village about a mile down the road has a bookstore she would like. Full of the muggle stories she likes so much.
"You would have really liked it here," I say.
"I would have," she agrees. "If things had been different."
"I'm ready now Malfoy," she states. I place my hand over my wand in my back pocket and hold it there for a moment as she stares at me.
"Granger," I start.
"Don't. You wanted it like this. You chose for it to happen this way. We could have had days together back in London before I left but you chose to do it like. So don't argue with me right now because a part of me really hates you for this," she argues, placing her hand under her eyes again to stop the tears. She turns her head up to the sky as if somehow that will stop them from falling.
"I would have never done this to you. It's incredibly selfish and I hate you for it," she cries. I try to close the distance between us again, but she presses her right arm hard into my chest to hold me back. I push it away.
"Stop!" she warns, trying to push me further back but I'm much stronger than she is and grab her arms so she can no longer hit at my chest with them.
"You know why I did this," I say pulling her mouth to mine, relishing in the warmth of her lips. I feel the thickness of her hair as I clump it together in my fist, dragging her closer to me. I break away from her mouth for a moment.
"I'll give you anything you want, Granger. Stay," I whisper against her lips, pulling and dragging at them furiously with mine, feeling her tears mingle in.
She pushes harder against my chest this time and I stumble back a step.
"Except the one thing I'm asking," she argues. "Please send me back now," she requests. Pressing her fingertips against her lips.
I pull out my wand, kicking at the grass beneath our feet for a moment. When I meet her eyes again, she's crying heavier than before.
"Goodbye Draco," she whispers. I take a deep breath to counteract the profound tension in my throat.
"Goodbye Hermione," I mumble, the words wrapped tight around the tension in my throat.
Before I flick my wand, I take her in one last time and for a moment that glint in her eye takes me back to Hogwarts and how that feeling used to tingle in my chest whenever I could get her to look at me. The joy I would feel being able to elicit any emotion out of her. The unspoken competitiveness we had together in classes before we ever spoke amicably to one another. That summer day in trig when she leaned back a little too far and I got a glimpse of her black underwear. She had been leaning over her desk to pick up a quill the weasel had dropped, and her skirt rode the entire way up. I was the only one in the row behind her to see. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom almost immediately after.
The breeze blows lazily sending her scent over to me and we're back in the forest of Dean again when I saw her again for the first time in over a year standing terrified at the bottom of that hill.
I start to move my wand, allowing my last glance at her to be her eyes. Ever knowing and all-seeing. How beautiful they would have been to look at in the French countryside. I finish the spell.
"I love you, Draco," her voice carries back at me as she disappears, rustling the grass crazily for a second before a stillness finds its place again.
Tonks speaks in my head then, almost angrily. 'Do not look back at certain points in your life and wish you had said something that the fear of vulnerability stopped you from saying.'
Had pride stopped me from telling her how I felt at possibly the last available time to say it?