Trial by Fire

Hey guys, I know it\'s been forever and I\'m sorry. Real life getting in the way again. Any way, I know it\'s a little short but I wanted to get the story going again. Don\'t forget to feed the writer. Happy Reading!! ~Ivy



“You left.” That’s all he said to her before he slipped away again. Three days later he was up and out of the hospital wing. Hermione had stayed by his side over those three long days just waiting hoping that her selfish actions didn’t just damn them both. Now that she was back at Hogwarts and by he side, she felt the hollow inside her.



A week ago Draco had walked out of the hospital wing and the care of Madame Pomfry and hadn’t spoken to Hermione since. He was slowly getting stronger, Hermione was sure if he let her help he would get better even faster. They were always in close proximity, but he didn’t reach for her anymore. Hermione realized as the week went on it was slowly killing her. So as they sat in their common room Hermione lost her temper.



“I didn’t leave to hurt you. I didn’t even think about how it would effect you. I’m truly sorry Draco,” Hermione half shouted.



“I’m not upset you left Hermione. Your family needed you, I don’t fault you for that. It just threw into sharp reality that you mean more to me then I do to you, and I’m not sure if I want this anymore.”



“You don’t want me anymore? Well, I guess this isn’t as permanent as you thought,” Hermione shouted while storming toward her room. All the while her heart slowly shattered in her chest.



Draco hissed in a sharp breath, feeling not only his heart breaking but her as well. He caught up to her as she turned to slam her bedroom door. “You really want the truth Hermione? I wouldn’t have picked you, not in a millennium. I won’t deny I’ve had my fair share of sexual fantasies about you, but a lifetime commitment? Never.”



Hermione just stood and stared. The man she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with didn’t even want her of his own accord. There had to be some way to stop this madness. Draco sensed her despair, he could feel her slipping away from the progress they had made together. Framing her face in his hands he spoke gently. “I wouldn’t have picked you Hermione for more reason then any, because I wouldn’t have picked anyone at 17. I’m still in school, there just a tad bit too much action to worry about a wife. To worry about anything other then making it through the night. Since we are being honest, would you have picked me?” Draco backed her into the room and nudged her down to sit on the bed. “Take your time then tell me the truth.”



Hermione sat watching Draco wander amongst her things. After a few minutes she decided to be completely honest. “Your absolutely right. I never would have picked you. We were never friends. We were barely on our way to being friends when the war ended. Then, well, I almost killed you.” Draco sat on the opposite side of the bed and watched her mind race ahead of her mouth. “Since we are being completely hones, of course I’ve entertained a sexual fantasy or two staring you. You know your gorgeous, you are the guy all the girls have had at least one fantasy about. But I’ve never considered you anything real.”



Draco could see that there was more behind her eyes then what she was giving him. “Completely honest Hermione that’s the only way we even stand a chance at making this work.”



“Saying it will only hurt you.”



“Not as much as you hurting hurts me. Hermione you need to understand what you feel I feel. It works both ways, when I feel like crap part of you feels it too.”



Hermione tried not to speak those words of betrayal but she couldn’t hold back while he was staring at her. “Harry was real. He has been a constant to me most of my life. You and I were always just a little fantasy. Always thoughts had in the dark behind my closed bed curtains.”



“Hermione Granger were you having impure thoughts about me?”



“First off, how can you joke right now? Second, every girl has at least one good fantasy about the bad boy. And third the point is you and I were never real. Harry and I were.”



Draco gracefully slid his feet to the floor. “As much as it pains me to say this, both emotionally and physically, maybe you need to go and find out if you and Harry are still real.” As Hermione looked at Draco completely baffled he continued to speak. “Go and see Harry, you need to have this conversation with him. I know I will never love another. Go, find Harry and for the love of Merlin talk to him.” Somewhere through the fog that had clouded Hermione’s brain she heard the quiet click of Draco’s bedroom door.





~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~





So here she was fifteen minutes later tromping through the castle looking for her best friend. The Gryffindor common room was as loud and boisterous and though she was waylaid a few times she eventually came upon Ginny.



“Ginny have you seen Harry?”



“Yes.”



“Did you want to share that information?” Hermione asked after a few minutes of silence.



“You know I do, but first,” Ginny got up and walked to the portrait hole. “Come with me.”



Hermione shuffled through the common room behind Ginny. They walked in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, making their way across the bridge that led to Hagrid’s hut. Once they were across the bridge Ginny rounded on Hermione. “once, a long time ago mind you, I had this awesome girlfriend. She was really funny, overwhelmingly smart and so loyal it was astounding. So imagine my surprise when the ‘brightest witch of my age’ did the dumbest thing on the planet.”



“Really what could she have done that was so stupid?” Hermione asked playing along.



“She turned her back on love.” Ginny sat under the shade of a willow tree. Hermione dropped down beside her on the chilled grass. September had rolled into October and the air outside was rapidly becoming cold.



“She didn’t turn her back on love. I still love Harry, it’s just…”



“I wasn’t talking about Harry, I was talking about Draco,” Ginny interrupted.



“Oh, well I haven’t actually…”



“You haven’t actually done anything. Maybe the fact that I have grown up with stories and Veela and fairies makes a slight difference on my view, but here is how I see it. You turned your back on love.”



“Knowing make believe is real as a child makes no difference in this case. My point is I can’t jump blindly into love with Draco, who I’ve never truly known, because fate says so.”



“It makes all the difference. Do you have any idea what any other witch in the world would give to be in your shoes? And I don’t just mean the guy. I mean the fact that you know your loved. That there will never be another. Not that Harry or Ron don’t love you. Just step back for a second. What would it be worth to know that ‘he’ will never love another woman. He will never even look at another woman. That you truly do mean as much to him as he does to you?”



“Everything” Hermione whispered. “I’m so scared that everything I’m feeling isn’t real. That it’s all just a reflection of what he is feeling. Not what I am feeling.”



“What if your feeling the same thing? True love. Look Hermione I‘m not going to argue with you. I just want you to think about your life. Why were you going to sleep with Harry? Why won‘t you sleep with Draco? When was the last time you lived? Harry is down at the pitch.” Ginny got up from under the willow, brushed off her bottom and turned to head back towards the castle. “He really does love you, just try and remember that.”



Hermione thought about what Ginny had said. What if this was true love? Hermione had read that it was, but experiencing it was a completely different story. Standing up and walking the rest of the way to the pitch Hermione thought about the different courses she could take. Was Harry real, or was he comfortable? Did she really not love Draco, or did she just love the idea of telling fate to shove off? As she walked to the center of the pitch Harry came to land softly beside her. Claiming the patch of grass beside her they sat in silence.



“If you came here to assassinate Draco by ravaging me, I can’t say that I object,” Harry joked.



“Why did you want to sleep with me?”



“What?”



“It isn’t exactly a hard question. There had to be some reason as to why. Was it curiosity, love, desire, boredom?”



“It certainly wasn’t boredom. I never really thought about the why ‘Mines. Does it really make a difference? I mean it didn’t happen and you found the person your supposed to be with.”



“How do you know I’m supposed to be with him?”



“Because you’re his mate. I know your resistant to the idea but I can’t, for the love of all things magical understand why. I know you’ll never admit it but you have a thing for him,” Harry cut off her upcoming protest before she could voice it. “I used to see the way you looked at him and hope one day someone would look at me like that. So, spill ‘Mines what’s the deal?”



“Were we ever real? I mean to each other. I know it was high pressure and all that, but was that all it was for us?”



“I’d like to think we could have been more. We’ll never know.”



It was then that Hermione rounded on him. “I am so sick of everyone just blindly following this rubbish...”



“Mines stop!” Harry had to yell to be heard over the ranting of his favorite witch. “I’m not resigned. It’s not my life. So why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”



“Did you want it to be your life? Or at least the part that included me?”



“I’m beginning to see where this is going. I’m the reason your holding back with Draco. Why?”



“Because, you and I were, well we were real. Draco is fantasy.”



“Draco was your fantasy. Now he can be your reality making me wonder why you hesitate. Could we have been real? Maybe. And if we’d made it to real we might have been content, but possibly not.”



Elsewhere in the castle Draco curled up on the sofa and waited for the pain of Hermione’s breaking heart to pass.



“Wow, thanks for letting me down gently.”



“Actually, I haven’t yet. Sit down and shut up. We’ve always, looking back, danced along the line of sexual attraction. You’re smart, beautiful, witty, and your funny as hell. Your also my best friend, as real as we could have been, we don’t have passion. We don’t set each other off. We don’t push each other. So we could have been real, and we might have been content. But I would never have made you blissfully happy. Neither of us could give what the other needed with out having to be asked.”



During Harry’s little speech he’d been shifting closer to Hermione and becoming more animated. Hermione threw her arms around his neck causing him to fall backward onto the cold grass. They laid in each others arms for what seemed like hours “Why couldn’t it have been you? Why couldn’t we have been fated?” Hermione asked burrowing her face into his chest.



“Because we don’t challenge each other to be better people Hermione. We are content being exactly who we are. Don’t get me wrong there isn’t anything wrong with that, you should expect that from your best friend. The person your going to spend the rest of your life with, build a family with they should push you to be a better person.”



“I know your right. I can feel that your right. Maybe I just needed to hear it from you. I love you Harry, I have to go see Draco now.”



“Night ‘Mines,” Harry kissed the top of her head and sat in the center of the pitch alone. He was still watching her walk away when he was join on the field.



“That was a really nice thing you did for her, mate.” Ron said sullenly.



“Its true Harry, it’s what she needed to hear.” Ginny confirmed.



“I know.,” Harry replied leaning against his friends. “I’ll always love her. Even if it can never be, even though she was never meant to be mine. The real kick in the ass is that everything I said was true. We won’t ever set each other on fire the way her and Draco do. For as long as we have known each other, I’ve never been able to do that. We’ve always just had this comfortable warm glow.”



“At least now you know why.”



“Yeah Ron, now I know why.”