No Longer Helpless

Chapter Twelve
Grieving Never Truly Ends

Hermione yawned, suddenly feeling very tired. Her eyes blinked lazily, watering from yet another yawn. Swaying slightly, she blinked while trying to retain her balance. For a moment she thought she heard someone calling her, but she couldn’t tell. Her eyes wouldn’t open after she blinked once more. Her mind was going foggy.

Everything went blank.

No wings in sight, Draco watched as Hermione rapidly drifted off. Now, she lay slumped forward against him, loosely gripping her wand.

Admittedly, he was also quite tired. It had been a rather straining day, mentally at least.

Being the smart wizard he was, he had the sneaking suspicion that she fell asleep after exhausting any level of her Angelus magic.

He groaned as she scooted closer, curling up to him while she still sat astride.

“Back to this, are we Granger?” he asked in a husky voice, shifting slightly, so that she wasn’t resting on such a sensitive area.

Across the room he saw, resting on the fireplace mantle, the book Dumbledore had given to Hermione. “Accio Book,” he called with a flick of his wand. The book flew to him seamlessly.

After he moved Hermione to a more comfortable position, he began reading. While he was sure she would get around to reading it tonight, assuming she woke up, he was a bit curious himself to know more. After seeing those wings he couldn’t help but wonder.

A couple hours later, Draco was reading the last chapter, when he began to feel that Hermione might stir sometime soon.

From what he had learned, the Angelus required sleep when their magic was unleashed without restraint and practice. The sleep followed in a ratio. Before, Hermione had slept for a whole two days, whereas now she’d only be out an hour or two.

The wings were a rare sight indeed. They only appeared upon the initial release of her dormant ability, during times of great need, or if she could manage to gain enough control.

Draco noticed there were no markings from the protrusions, which the book made no mention of, nor did it explain why he had just witnessed seeing the wings when this instance didn’t fall under any of the circumstances given by the book. He wondered if the author had ever actually seen an Angelus or just written the contents based on folklore.

The last chapter of the book finally got to what he had been most concerned about, the allure of an Angelus. Being something along the lines of a Veela, the book explained that the only time an Angelus was in danger of attracting attention with their aura was after an uncontrolled admittance of their power.

Always after the first inheritance of power there was a vibe sent out which drew onlookers’ gaze. Like Veela, Angelus were naturally beautiful creatures, so if a person were drawn to staring long enough, nature would take its course. It wasn’t nearly as extreme or controlling as a Veela’s trilling song.

This did not ease his mind. Part of him had been hoping that any attraction he was feeling for the little know-it-all would have been solely formed from her being Veela-ish in some manner.

Now, he had learned that there was nothing forced about it, and if the book was right, then the aura had faded shortly after she’d woken up in the hospital wing. This meant he was under not influence.

Neither was Snape for that matter. ‘The slimy bastard,’ Draco raged, suddenly becoming angry that all the male onlookers of the past day had been ogling his kitten for no reason.

“Merlin,” he groaned. ‘Did I just think of her as my kitten?’

Glancing down at Hermione, he stared. Sure enough now that he knew what he should be feeling, he felt oddly drawn to looking at her face. Placing a hand under her chin he let his thumb stroke her lips.

“She’s off limits Draco,” he stated to himself. His breath hitched as he thought she might wake up as her eyes fluttered slightly. Still sleeping, she simply clenched a fist full of his shirt and continued to drift listless in unconsciousness.

After studying her another moment he seemed to make his mind up. “I’ve always enjoyed breaking the rules,” he muttered before dipping his head and doing what he’d been thinking about since that morning.

He claimed her lips, which were so soft and so sweet, a hungry growl sounded in the back of his throat. He didn’t dare press too hard or deepen it anymore, for she’d definitely wake up then.

Not lingering in the kiss for too long, he pulled back, feeling more torn now than before. This was Granger, not some random skirt to chase and have a one night stand with. Flings were all he ever had, he didn’t know anything more. Not to mention, the past six years weren’t some lie to admit to and apologize for.

He wasn’t sorry or remorseful over their relationship since day one. Until the last twenty-four hours, he hadn’t seen Granger as anything but his bickering partner. Indeed, their civility was solely derived from the highly coined phrase, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’

Now that they were on the same side of the war, their school rivalry was put on hold, at least that’s the vibe he had picked up. Being on the same side seemed to pour cool water on hot coals, since most of the animosity he received from everyone had been over his alleged support of Voldemort. In his defense, tweedle-dumb and dumber had rubbed him wrong from day one, and she had been an insufferable know-it-all with bushy hair that showed him up in class.

Too much had changed for things to remain as they were. She was far from the bushy hair and buck tooth little girl he’d remembered as, and while not much could be done about her side kicks, this growing attraction he felt was too heated to deny.

At the moment he was too wound up to think straight and after kissing Hermione, he had only managed to jumble things up even more. That single, brief, and entirely one sided kiss had been better than any other for him. Never before had he wanted to smile and laugh from sheer joy at kissing a girl.

She’d been asleep for Merlin’s sake! Draco clenched and unclenched his jaw, noting how Hermione was showing faint signs of waking up sometime soon. The mere idea of being with Granger, which was what was running through his mind right then, was too ludicrous for him to think about. It made him want to pull his hair out in frustration.

Finally, unable to brood with her sleeping right before him, he ripped his shirt from her grasp, gently set her against the arm of the couch and strode out of the room. Hoping some fresh air and distance would clear his muddled mind, he made his way to the Quidditch pitch.

Slowly and cautiously Hermione opened her eyes. It seemed that each time she woke up as of late, something had gone awry or she remembered doing something inappropriate.

Indeed, she now cringed at her last memory, even though Malfoy was nowhere in her immediate sight. Malfoy had been looking at her with surprise, and she had asked, “What?”

She had been straddling him like it was the most common thing to do. Of course he would look surprised. Why had she acted so rashly? Damn wand. Being a clever witch, it didn’t take her long to surmise that it had been affecting her to the point of disrupting her common sense and rational behavior.

Sitting up, she looked around. Malfoy was indeed nowhere to be found, but the book she had yet to read from Dumbledore lay on the far cushion. Picking it up, she made her way to the kitchen so that she could read and eat at the same time. Two tasks she managed along side each other quite well over the past few years.

Shortly after being drawn into the book, Hermione closed it with a thud. Hardly any of it seemed like sound fact, but Dumbledore wouldn’t have given it to her otherwise.

There were still many questions left unanswered for her. Like her growing attraction the Draco. No where in the book did it state that she might begin to feel oddly drawn to the most random and least likely sorts. She sighed, realizing that all along there had been a hope within her that her crush on Draco would be justified by being an Angelus.

Resting her head on the cold counter top, part of her wallowed over the bit of information about when her powers would surface. During times of great need, that had been the night her parents were murdered, how else had Dumbledore come across the feather?

If that had been such a time of need, why hadn’t she been able to do anything sooner? The book described little in the way of what an Angelus had the ability to do, so her mind began to create things.

For one, she should have felt some alarm go off, before the Death Eaters attacked, and then she should have reached her parents in time and saved them. Damn it all if she couldn’t keep heroic scenarios from playing over and over in her head, each one ending with a family hug and nothing but smiles.

Her anger started to brew, and then boil. There were no smiles, not from her parents. ‘They’ll never smile again,’ Her parents were dead and she had spent the day mooning over some guy and spending money on clothes. ‘How sick am I?’

“Gods, I go and get them killed and then this is how I act?” she voiced angrily to the walls. Her heart hurt, it hurt so badly. They were gone, and it was because of her.

Not only that, but now she finds out she had abilities other than that of a witch that could have saved them, and she hadn’t used them. Sure, she managed to save her own damn self, but never mind two of the most important people to her in the whole world.

“Come on, let’s see this so called power!” she shouted, calling out to no one as though it should trigger some reaction. She was standing now, and abruptly chucked the book across the room. It clattered against the spices in the rack, before falling to the floor.

A loud sob surged forth, and she was doubled over on the floor before she knew what had become of herself. Tears kept coming, and her anger never abated, in fact she felt even angrier at her inability to control herself.

“Time of need my arse,” she choked out, before clambering to her feet and striding out of the kitchen. “I’ll show you time of need,” she mumbled.

The sun was setting in red and gold hews along the horizon. Draco leaned on the side of the tower’s top watching as he tried to sort his thoughts out. He’d been flying at the pitch for a bit, before he landed here and just stared off into the distance.

His heart was aching now, and he had no idea why. When had everything become so complicated?

His pensive moment was interrupted by the sound of the tower door banging open. And true to his belief that he’d never find shelter from his constant thoughts about Granger, there she stood, bringing a fresh wave of questions involving her. Why was she here? Why was she crying? Why did her eyes look so distant and lost?

Seeing Draco up at the top of the astronomy tower hardly registered in her mind. She approached him while wiping her blotchy cheeks free of salty tears. “This is because I don’t think they’ll come out.”

She made no sense to him, and he was going to ask her what she meant by it when she had suddenly grabbed his robes pulled him down to her mouth. She was kissing him. He was sent reeling into shock. The kiss was quick and light, much as his earlier one had been, and just when he felt his senses take over and drive him to start and deepen it, it was over.

She pulled back and turned from him. With his mind in a frenzied storm of pandemonium, he didn’t move for a moment. Then quick as cat, she turned tail and darted over to the ledge. His eyes widened in utter horror as she swiftly hopped up and dove off.

In what felt like an eternity, but was actually only a couple seconds, Draco felt a tirade of emotions. Disbelief at what had just transpired was foremost, then his chest constricted and his heart clenched as he realized Hermione had just leapt off the astronomy tower and would surely die as a result.

He never moved so fast and deftly in all his life. Broom near by, he managed to retrieve it and lever himself over the edge by jumping and using his left hand to push off the short stonewall.

Free falling wasted too much time, so he easily used the broom to speed himself up into a dangerous vertical dive downward. He could see her, just ahead. The ground was too close. Fear consumed him as he thought he might not make it.

Suddenly, a flash of light blinded him, and a hope sparked in the back of his mind. He’d seen that flash on a couple occasions, it only ever meant one thing. He slowed down, taking care to pull out of his dive before he met his own end.

He watched as Hermione slowed her descent and stop in the air, flying with the aid of her wings. She didn’t remain airborne long though, shortly after hovering and moving out toward the lake, she settled to the ground.

Draco continued to watch, having flown nearby as well, as she gracefully wandered over to the water’s edge and looked at her own reflection.

Once he got off his broom he ran over to her. “Granger!” he shouted to her with such a fierce tone her dazed mindset shattered.

While she had known what she did, she hadn’t been thinking straight. Now, however, she felt herself gain control, and time seemed to begin flowing once again. She noticed her wings were gone now.

It was weird, she hadn’t known what to expect, since the book didn’t describe things from another Angelus’ point of view. There wasn’t a feeling of having wings coming out of her back, in fact when she stared at them in the water and moved them a bit, it felt like she was moving any other limb on her body, it was natural.

As Malfoy stalked over to her, she grew wary as he seemed to be angrier than she’d ever seen him before.

Draco had never felt so enraged in all his life, Granger had just leapt off the tallest tower in the castle to test if her wings would come forth, at least he deduced this much. His anger was so great that it caused a temporary inability to vocalize anything.

Chest heaving, he paced back and forth in front of Granger. “Did you just jump off the tower,” he clenched his jaw, “to see what would happen?”

Hermione looked at him uncertainly, still feeling in a rather depressed mood from her earlier kitchen break down. “Yeah,” she answered in a monotone voice. The fury held in Draco’s eyes did more to rival that which she’d seen in Harry’s.

Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You,” he began in a low voice, “are a BLOODY MORON!!” he ended in a fierce outburst. When she didn’t speak he continued, “Are you insane?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Well, I was upset and not thinking clearly,” she tried to defend herself, even though her logical mind was asking just as appalled at her actions as Draco seemed to be.

“I don’t think you were thinking at all, clearly or otherwise.” He had never felt such fear in all his life, what if she had died? What if he had lost her? He hadn’t even gotten the chance to sort his feelings out and come to the conclusion that he might like her.

“I know it was stupid ok?” She had tears in her eyes again. She was now frightened at what she’d done, but not because she was afraid of falling from high places. She was frightened because part of her had been hoping her powers would fail her like they had her parents, and then she’d be with them.

Seeing the confusion and distress within her, he pulled her to him and hugged her tightly, kissing the top of her head. “What if I’d lost you?” he asked, not caring that she could hear him.

One thing was for sure now, he concluded as he carried a willing Hermione back to their dorm room. He had feelings for this girl. That was made clear as day when he almost broke down crying in relief when he realized she hadn’t died.

This was ridiculous, he hardly knew her. Sure, he’d known Granger for the last six years, but not Hermione. Now, he was beginning to feel a dependence upon her. Having her near his side for the past couple days made him feel like he was missing something when she wasn’t around.

It was okay though, if they went with Moody and Dumbledore’s plans, then they would remain by each other’s side for a long time to come. Attraction aside, he’d settle for being nothing more than partners and maybe friends some day. They would have to talk about this, and soon. If her little farewell kiss was any indication, she too was feeling something for him.

‘Tomorrow then,’ he decided. They would sort things out properly tomorrow. For now, they would go with the flow, and he would hold her in his arms squeezing her each time he imagined what might have happened.

Hermione held onto Draco, more certain now than ever before that he had a great affect on her heart. It would seem only he could sooth her and calm her writhing soul as she cried in pain.

Her tears ended shortly after he carried her back to their common room. As he held her, making no signs of letting go, she kept her silence and bashfully wrapped her own arms around his neck. She didn’t even notice when he lay down with her on his own bed.

Every fiber of her being cried out to stay close to him, so she did. There was definitely something going on between them, from his words after she’d foolishly jumped, he cared about her. They would have to talk.

Embarrassment aside, she’d voice her feelings about matters in the morning. For now, she’d continue to listen to the steady beat of his heart while furled up against him.

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