Striving For Something Not Temporary

Sorry it came out so late, I hope you all enjoy. ;o)

BTW, http://www.livejournal.com/users/evil_turtle8/ is a new D/Hr site with lists of great stories if anyone is interested, I highly suggest taking a look at it.


Hermione sat on the balcony chair sucking on the end of her cigarette like it was the last lifeline to her sanity. She was going over the game plan in her head on what would be the best books in the library to research her little night time sabbatical problems.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew these dreams weren’t just dreams. He was entering her mind, and she needed to figure out how. With any luck she could figure out how to block him out and essentially ignore the problem once again. An out of sight out of mind type of solution that she was all but eager to start production on.

Her body literally shuddered when her mind drifted back to the visions of that disgusting excuse for a man. Once she could safely figure out how to block him from her dreams, she had half a mind to obliterate him from her memory all together. The fucking pig.

“Gimme that.” were the words uttered as she was ripped out of her musings by her life fueling nicotine being pulled away from her.

She looked up to see Draco lighting his own cigarette off the end of her’s. “I lost my lighter.” he finally supplied after making sure it was thoroughly lit. “You know, if I didn’t know muggles made those blasted things, I would swear there was a jinx placed on them so you lost them and had to go out and buy more.”

“Fairly ingenious idea actually, now that I think of it.” he mused after a few moments of silence.

“Give me back my smoke you little nicotine hog.” she demanded as she lunged her hand out to him with her fingers outstretched in scissor formation.

“Aww, look how cranky and scowly my little hag is.” Draco chirped as he handed her back what seemed to be her life force. “I take it the indulgences of coffee has alluded you this morning?”

Hermione gifted him with an expression that could peel paint.

“Sorry baby, I’ll go make some.” he said, as he shrank away from her slightly and retreated back through the balcony doors.

***

Draco had just left the owlery from sending an letter to Professor Snape. He was the only person he felt he could truly trust to confide in about Hermione’s nightmares that would actually have the means to help him if the need for it arose.

It was clear to him that she was keeping quiet about the whole ordeal. You could tell by just looking at her that it was eating her apart inside. He told her that if she wouldn’t talk to anyone about it, he would take matters into his own hands. That was just what he was going to do. For her sanity, and for his own.

He wanted to seek his Professor’s opinion on the matter at his earliest convenience, as to not arise a questionable look from Hermione if he were to approach him after class. He tried not dwell on what happened last night in front of her so she would freak out about him coddling her. The girl got quite frankly shrilly when she felt her independence being threatened in any way, and it was something his ears had little tolerance for, no matter what time of day it was.

Breakfast was about half finished when the owls swooped down for their daily mail call. A letter was found lodged in Draco’s bowl of oatmeal as he looked down to take another bite. He pulled it out and brushed it off with a napkin as one of the school’s barn owls flew further and further away from him into the air.

Mr. Malfoy,

After lunch would be a suitable time to speak freely. You are more than welcome to stop by my office when I am finished.

Severus

“Oooh, a love letter. Who’s the lucky tart today you mad hot stud muffin you?”

Draco looked up to meet a pair of mischievously twinkling obsidian eyes. “Fuck off Blaise.” he chuckled softly as he put the note into his robe pocket and shook his head.

***

Hermione had been in the library pouring over books in her free period for the better part of forty-five minutes, and still hadn’t found anything of substantial relevance to help her. She had even gave in and flipped through meaningless garbage in the Divination section thinking there might be a pearl of wisdom or two in mixed into the pages of idiotic nonsense.

Nothing.

Well, there was always the old trusty Occulmancy. Too bad that took ages to learn, and to do it independently would be completely impossible. It’s not like she could go up to Draco and ask him to help take a gander at it. She would be admitting to him that it was more than just a silly nightmare, and that was something she never wanted to do out loud if she could help it.

There seemed to be no short term solution to her problem in the stacks of information she had grown to love throughout the years. The only thought that came immediately to her brain was what a rubbish heap she felt like her once safe haven had become.

Sighing in defeat, she decided to go down to lunch. There was no use in continuing to search for something that obviously wasn’t there. Heaving her bag onto her back, she began the long boring trek down to the Great Hall.

“What’s with the God damned poo poo party we have congregating around the table this afternoon?

Hermione looked up from moving her food around on her plate to see a leery looking Ron starting at her through narrowed eyes. “What are you talking about?” she inquired.

“Well first Harry acts like a stick in the mud for the past forever days now,” he said as he pointed his thumb in his friend’s general direction, “and now you’re–“

Hermione never actually got to find out from Ron what she was exactly, for at that moment Harry made his thoughts known to the slight group of friends. “Way to word vomit to the whole fucking world Ron. I thought I told you that it was nothing?” He stood up abruptly from the table and stormed off, muttering random rants about blabbermouths and keeping their mouths shut.

“What the hell was that about?” Hermione following his gaze, stated completely flabbergasted.

Ron dropped his head a bit lower and gazed around the table before responding. “He’s been clutching his scar like a crazy son of a bitch lately.”

“Well why couldn’t he have told me that?” Hermione pondered, a bit put out by the secrecy of what she thought to be one of her closest allies. “I’m just as much a friend to him as you are, aren’t I?”

“I honestly don’t think he would have told me about it either if I hadn’t noticed him rubbing it so much these last few days.” he continued in a lower whisper. “I just don’t think he wants us to be bothered with it.”

Hermione’s throat emitted a low guttural hiss as she processed her friend’s information. “Always so fucking noble, isn’t he?”

It wasn’t as if she were really angry at Harry. She had been doing the same thing after all, hadn’t she? It was always in the back of her mind to seekadvic e from him, but in the end she was using the same excuse. She didn’t want them worried over nothing.

In all actuality, it would have been good to know about it. She wouldn’t have felt so alone in her struggles, and it would have confirmed the fact that she wasn’t going crazy. Now that she knew that she wasn’t a mental head case, going crazy on her own accord, the alternative scared her just as much.

Were her dreams interwoven with his? If so, was it only the Voldemort visions, or every part of her dreams? This whole day wasn’t going at all how she planned it. The whole ‘out of sight out of mind’ solution was so far from becoming the reality she desperately yearned for that very morning.

***

Draco looked up from his mushy peas and potatoes to see Harry storm out of the Great Hall in a white hot raging fury. He hated the way he could no longer feel glee for this particular type of situation. He loathed Potter with every fiber of his being, but when in witness to a particular situation such as this all he was left with was the wonderment of Hermione. He loved her, but she turned him soft to anything regarding her.

He hated that.

Last night also brought on a whole new set of troubling thoughts for him to mull over regarding her. He kept thinking about what he thought she said when he was almost asleep last night. He could have sworn she had told him she loved him, but he wasn’t sure if he had just imagined it.

He had told her he loved her several times, and the Gods above help him if it wasn’t the truth. When he heard those words enter his mind though, he had realized that he’d never actually heard her utter them to him before. He hadn’t realized before that moment how much he really needed to hear that from her.

Did she not love him? Were her feelings for him not as strong as his are for her? It was painful to think that she didn’t need him the way he needed her. She made him feel human. She made him feel needed. He felt worth for himself when she was around. That’s what it all came down to in the end in fact. She made him feel.

Draco was momentarily distracted as he watched Snape get up from the staff table and exit out the Great Hall doors. He hastily set down his napkin on the table and started towards the doors himself. Following the familiar path down to the dungeons, he found himself standing in front of the dark aging wood that made up the entrance to his mentor’s office. He knocked on the old solid panel and awaited recognition.

“Enter.”

As the door creaked open, his professor came into view.

“Ah, what is it I can help you with this afternoon, Draco?” Professor Snape asked, as he was shuffling a pile of parchment that lay in front of him.

“It’s Hermione sir.” Draco stated in a serious tone. “I need your advice about a matter.”

***

Hermione shuffled her was through the corridors. Her feet taking her on the path that few she knew ever really wandered. She turned down one of the castle’s many abandoned hallways, until she reached an airy isolated alcove with a sad and mysterious stained glass window facing the direction of the lake.

She discovered that her earlier hunch had been correct when she spied the frail and defeated looking form occupying the ledge of the massive portrait style window. She leaned over and hugged him from behind, kissing his temple. When she heard a sharp intake of breath, she squeezed even tighter. “For my sanity, I need for you to talk to me Harry.”

Sighing in defeat, he turned around to face her. “What about my sanity Mione?” he inquired, looking at her with sad eyes. “Did you wonder about that at all?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” she stated softly as she curled up in the alcove with her best friend. “I think your wires are at a greater risk of snapping then mine are, and these days that’s no small feat.”

He let out a disconcerted scoff and sat in silence for a few moments, petting the back of her hair, lingering through his thoughts before he spoke again. “I just thought that this was my burden to bear, you know? That’s how it’s always seemed to play out. I’m the one that has this god forsaken destiny, and no matter how much I don’t want anyone involved in it, the bastard always manages to drag the people I love into the mix and hurt me deeper and deeper every time.”

Hermione sat there, curled into his arms saying nothing. She knew he had a lot to get off his chest, and she would be his silent comfort until he needed her thoughts in the matter.

“I never asked for this. I was born, and I didn’t die. That was it. The fucker sure can hold a grudge, you know?” he laughed bitterly. “There are so few people that I love and care about in my life. That I regard as family. Most people just hear my name, they always seem to want something from me. To take a slice of the popularity that I want to heave off the highest bell tower and disappear from. If they only knew that being so close meant being in danger, you think they would have anything to do with me? I’m so sick of it Hermione, so sick of everything.” he spat.

“Now he’s going after you. My best friend. My only sister. One of my allies that I love and respect more than anyone else on this Earth, and I just can’t deal with it anymore.” He squeezed his arms around her more tightly and wet her cheeks with his silent painful tears. “I can’t battle these demons by myself. I just don’t know what to do. Some days I feel like just giving up to save the pain of the people I love. You don’t deserve the pain that was meant for me Mione, no one does.”

“Shhhh....don’t even think that way Harry. Do you hear me?” she softly scolded. “Ron and I have and always will be with you, until our dying day. You can’t push us away from your friendship and everything it holds with it. What this is, this is no different than anything else we’ve dealt with in the past. This is another puzzle for us to figure out and another adventure that we, as your family, need to battle through.”

“This is so much different Mione...” he tried to argue.

“No, it’s not.” she quickly cut him off. “I’ve been in danger before, and God help me, being your friend I know I’ll be in danger again.” she stated in a matter of fact tone. “Now tell me why you thought you should keep your problems to yourself this year. You know that’s not the way we work.”

“It’s just too close to home this time. I thought that if I didn’t burden you guys with it, I could stop it from happening without making you worry for nothing.”

Hermione looked into his face, completely dumbstruck by his last admission. “Don’t you see Harry, how it’s made it so much worse?” she questioned while rubbing the silent tears from his cheek. “I’ve been dreaming of him for months now, thinking it was just a silly nightmare. Had I known for one moment you were being bothered as well, it would have drove me less crazy because I would have known it wasn’t just my imagination. We could have had more time to figure out what the hell is going on!”

“How was I supposed to know?” he asked softly, turning his head to face the window. “I’m sorry, I always seem to make things worse by trying to protect people.”

“He’s too powerful Harry. You need people to help you. Like you said, you never asked for any of this, so why do you feel you need to bear this alone? You’re not his only target, you’re just his favorite target.”

He let out a chuckle at this, finally managing a real smile since their conversation started. “Gee Mione, you sure know how to make a man feel prized.”

“Oh shut up, Harry.” she grinned.

They sat in a cheerier silence for a few moments before he decided to speak again. “I believe I have more than a vague idea of what you’ve been dreaming about Mione. The good, and the bad.”

“Okay Mr. Cryptic, care to enlighten me?” she jeered.

“Do you love him?” he asked, looking intently into her eyes.

“Who?” she asked quickly, a bit of panic hidden in her voice.

“Christ Mione, you’d think by the way you play stupid, people will suddenly turn stupid.” he dead panned.

“Well what would you say to me if I said I did?” she looked to him meekly.

He let out a long sigh, and stroked a few stray hairs back behind her ears. He glanced out the window and gathered his thoughts before looking back at her to answer. “If he treats you a fraction as good as he does in those visions, he’s not at all the man I thought him to be.” he stated honestly. “If that’s the case, I truly feel it’s a great thing. You deserve to be happy Hermione. If he makes you happy, then I’m glad you found love for him. Maybe he’ll stop being such a bastard now.”

“Oh, thank you Harry.” she managed through her grin and hugged him firmly. “You have no idea what it does to me to hear you say that.”

"Everything’s going to be fine, okay? You’ll see.” Even though he couldn’t trust his words with conviction, when he returned her embrace, he managed for a slight moment to believe it just a little.





Well, so that's that. I actually had this posted before but due to that whole glitchy-do all the responses to the previous reviewers got deleted....which it totally lame as I have too much homework due tomorrow to sit down and really write them all out again and I apologize for that. Just please know that I thank you for your support on this story and I love to hear your feedback.

I can't wait to see what you all think! ;o)