Water

Title: Water
Chapter Twenty
Genres: Angst
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sexual references, Strong language
Feedback: Please tell me exactly what you think in the review section! I'm hard- I can take it!
Summary: "...You’re the one who needs help! You’re the one who makes my skin crawl whenever we stand in the same room! You’re fucked up Malfoy. And your father couldn’t even teach you anything other than how to fuck up everyone else with you-” Her wand went flying.


Welcome to Hermione Granger’s new self. If you could just ignore the old one, lying over there in the corner, battered and bruised. She never really recovered from the bathroom floor. She never really rose to her feet after that night of sex and broken glass. Perhaps there were too many things holding her down. Too many lies.

Too many disgusting lies.

Instead, this was Hermione now. Desperately clawing at that girl on the floor, pleading with her to get up. Pleading with her to carry on. Because things used to be so clear. Things used to be so easy. They were equations in her head. They had an answer, even if it took a little while to get there. There was always an answer.

Hermione did not want to be this person. This person was crumbling.

She had lied to Professor Dumbledore earlier. She had gone in there with the intention of telling the truth. Or most of it. But instead she had barely scraped the surface.

Why? Would she have done that three months ago? Would she have accepted that some things are just too complicated, even for the Headmaster? The shining beacon of hope that used to be the Headmaster?

She had sat down in that chair, Dumbledore’s words prickling over her, pulling her back into reality. Draco was right. This was the world she lived in now. Draco was right and she was helpless. She couldn’t say anything of what she wanted to say. Not in the end.

So she told the Professor a lie. It wasn't a way out. Because there wasn't a way out. Maybe he would figure it all out sooner or later. Did it matter? The outright truth would surely lead to even more pain.

For now it was simply a way up.

A way to carry her above it all. And Draco. And Harry. A path that would leave them paddling in the chaos that they've created, that they will have to clean up, over months, years perhaps, but at least with the air to breath. At least without teachers and questions that she could barely answer herself.

Head above water, even if there's no rescue for another hundred miles.

But it didn’t lift any weight from her shoulders. It didn’t change a single thought in her tangled head. She couldn’t shed any of what was burdening her. So yes, head above water. For now. With Dumbledore at least. Just something to give them a bit more space. Hold off the inevitable, perhaps. Let them relish the mess they’ve created for a bit longer.

Because Draco was right. There are some things you just can’t explain with words.

Everything, it seemed, had become about emotions. Inescapably, of course. But every conversation was not about the words. It was about the way they were said, about the glaringly obvious things left unsaid. It was about everything but the words that were used to describe what was actually, honestly, definitely happening around them.

They never got anywhere because they couldn't see a way forward. It was hidden.

Hermione had never outright told Harry the stark truth about her and Draco. She didn't know that there was one, or if it could be told in words. But that, in itself, was just an excuse.

No wonder Harry was angry. Confused. Reading emotion after emotion in an attempt to unravel what he knew was there, but couldn't quite grasp. How could he ever accept something that he couldn't touch? Couldn't know for definite? Why start on that long, doubtful road to understanding and acceptance when there may be no point? The ambiguities of a situation kid can you into thinking that you might just be wrong about what's in front of you.
And Draco. He had someone once.

Draco never told Pansy that what he had done to her was wrong. That he was never right for her. And that he understood her pain but couldn't be a part of it. He never told Pansy that he was trying to salvage his own life and move away from what they had both been buried in for years. Maybe because he didn't even realise it himself. Or maybe because that refusal to realise it was, again, just an excuse.

They didn’t say these things to the people around them. And why? Why did they make it so much harder for themselves? Why couldn’t they see the value in the truth anymore?

And there was something worse. The worst in all of this. The biggest lie.

Hermione never told Draco that she didn't think she was capable of feeling more for anyone else. That losing him would hurt more than holding on to him. That Harry was still suffering because Hermione was, undeniably, putting her messy relationship with Draco before all of them. Because Draco was worth that much.

She never admitted this because it was wrong. It had to be wrong. Because she told herself it was just a phase. That infatuation was powerful and addicting, clouding your judgement. And these were her excuses.

There were a million reasons the truth had been the second option. In every single choice she’d made.

The truth. She couldn’t even remember what it meant anymore.

And so answer this, Hermione. How do you expect to save Draco when you can’t even save yourself? How do you expect to tell him your feelings when you can’t even accept them? When you can’t even know for sure that it’s really you who is feeling them? And not just some new person you barely recognise?

The answer is you can’t. You can’t trust yourself. You can’t tell him your feelings.

You can’t save him.

You aren’t who you used to be. You can’t do those things anymore.


*

"It was just a fight."

The same answer, to the same question, for the third time.

"Just a fight?"

"Yes."

"There is no such thing as justa fight, Mr Malfoy. Actions have consequences. I daresay the fight itself was a consequence of some sort of disagreement. As they always are. So, Draco, I will ask you again. Why were you fighting with Harry?"

"Have you asked him the same question?"

"Harry is still in the hospital wing. Where you should in fact also be resting, Draco. But your refusal to spend any time there is why you are here now. Even though Madame Pomfrey insisted, with which I very much agree, you are in no fit state to be wandering around the school."

"So, then, Professor Dumbledore," murmured Draco, his tone cool, "I am surely in no fit state to be answering questions."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Yes. One would think so. But if you believe you require no healing, then I would think in the same argument you'd be well enough to sit in front of me. And who am I to argue the point? You're old enough to make your own decisions now, Draco. You are old enough to accept full responsibility. You are old enough to be held accountable."

There was no distracting from the subject.

You could try talking about the fucking weather and he'd find some wise way of linking it back to the wider context of your situation.

Isn't the weather chilly today, Professor?

Yes, Draco Malfoy, the weather is as cold as the air before us. The same air that hangs with the responsibility of your cold actions. Cold and heartless actions, Draco Malfoy. Which relates back to your original comment of the cold weather whilst also drawing upon your fight with Harry Potter.

Et cetera.

In fact, maybe Draco should try a conversation about the weather? Just to test him.

He briefly recalled the instructions Hermione had given him. She had told Draco and Harry to say it was a fight about about her. A very plausible, realistic explanation. Almost near to the whole truth of the matter.

But for some reason, Draco didn't want to bring it up. He maintained that silence was the best answer to every question. Short, unhelpful answers. Because once you answer one question, you'll find yourself answering three hundred more that will result in, before you know it, a whole host of other uncovered problems you never even thought Dumbledore could touch upon.

But he would. Because that's what he does. He interferes. So no. No answers. If Draco were to start answering questions now he would no doubt unintentionally end up revealing everything down to how many times a day he has a wank.

Hermione thought she had them covered with her last minute change of story. But Draco knew. Dumbledore was old, bloody irritating and insufferably arrogant but he wasn't a fool. And he would have read her like a book. Because that's how Hermione was, wearing her feelings on her skin. Her trepidation. Her hesitation. Even her lies.

Perhaps the Professor had truly trusted Hermione not to come rushing to Harry and Draco to tell them her story, or perhaps he didn't. And Draco was surprised, even confused, as to how she may have gotten away with doing so. Which was why he felt it safe to assume that she hadn't got away with it. And that he needed to play it safe. Through silence.

"I assume from your long silence that you don't intend to get anywhere today, Draco," sighed Dumbledore, "And perhaps I cannot change that. But, please, I urge you to remember what is at stake here. You have already lost Head Boy. Do not put your whole place at Hogwarts in danger as well."

Draco was waiting for Dumbledore to mention that — the same ultimate, very predictable threat he had thrown at Draco last night. He found himself shaking his head without intending to. Which was a reaction that was absolutely not on if he wanted to maintain his blank exterior.

"You wouldn't expell me, Professor," replied Draco, his tone calm, his insides raging at him to be quiet and indifferent. "You can't."

"And why not, Draco?"

"Because you won't expel Potter."

Dumbledore looked down, an element of unsuprise across his face. As if he'd heard it all before. As if he didn't blame Draco for his reasoning. As if he were about to tell Draco to 'never assume'.

"You shouldn't simply—”

"Assume?" guessed Draco, a smirk growing on his face. "With all due respect, Professor, I'm not assuming anything. It would be unrealistic to expect either myself or Potter to ever believe you would expel him."

"And what makes you think if I were to expel you, I would not be justified in doing so unless I expelled Harry as well?"

"A long list of reasons, Professor, many of which I know you would excuse. And that isn't a problem. I appreciate his worth to you. To this school."

"He is not just of worth to me, Draco. I daresay, regardless of whether you will ever accept it, he is of some worth to you as well."

Draco felt his skin prickle under a sudden heat. It was beyond infuriating that such constant implications of Harry's worth above his own were thrown in his face. And by someone who prided himself on being to unbiased, so fair. It was difficult to be silent. It was so difficult.

"He is of worth to me?" repeated Draco, eyes narrowing. "In so far as I need him in order to be a better person, Professor?" His fingers stiffened against the arms of his chair. "Or perhaps he is of so much worth to me because he's going to save us all? Even those of us that don't want to be saved. In which case, what shame I bring upon myself by not worshipping the chosen one. For he, of course, is so valuable to my life. I don't quite know how—”

"That's enough, Draco," interupted Dumbledore, his tone uncharacteristically firm. "Harry is as valuable to you as you are to him. He is as valuable to you as, I would think, most Slytherins are to Gryffindors, and vice versa. They are of worth to each other, Mr Malfoy, because you will never learn so much about yourself as when you are confronted with those who oppose you. And if you are able to move past it, if you are able to overcome the differences and rise above them, you will be a better person than you would ever have been had you not been confronted at all."

Draco's mouth remained closed. He didn't know what to say as instantly as he would have liked. It was so typical, so obvious that Dumbledore would have some kind of defence, a wizard-sharp comeback to Draco's overreaction. But he wasn't finished. Not entirely.

"I can only suggest then, Professor," replied Draco, voice a little calmer than seconds before, "that my feud with Harry Potter is nothing more than a necessary, healthy, character-building exercise that, one day, we can both move past. Until then, it's nothing dangerous beyond the injuries we cause each other."

"Nothing dangerous, Draco?" Dumbledore shook his head, as if saddened. As if disappointed. It was a disgusting expression that Draco very much hated. He heard the Headmaster take a long, drawn-out breath.
"I would like to ask you a question," he continued, "And I would like you to think about your response before you answer defensively, Draco. Because it is not an accusation. It is simply a question. Do you consider yourself a dangerous person?"

Draco blinked.

And again.

Silence. That was the original plan. Silence. Silence even if you know the answer to the question. And perhaps even more reason to be silent when you have no idea what the answer is.

Do you consider yourself a dangerous person?

Based on the evidence? Yes. That was how it looked. To myself. To others.

But it wasn't an answer he could articulate. It wasn't straightforward. Because the connotations of such a response were so negative even Draco wouldn't welcome them, unlike his usual indifference to most other consequences of his words.

His father was a dangerous person. That was who he was. He was steering a war. He was practically the front man. At home, at work—not that the division between the two existed. That was what dangerous meant to Draco. His father coming home rattled by a defeat. Infuriated by a thoughtless word from his mother. Enraged by Draco breaking a glass.

Draco hoped that he didn't compare to that degree of what Dumbledore so freely referred to as dangerous.

It was a strong word, even for Draco. And even though he may not have minded other pupils thinking it before, now it seemed entirely different. And even though Dumbledore explicitly stated otherwise, it was surely an accusation.

A warranted one, he murmured somewhere in the very back of his head.

"Let me ask you something else, Draco," said the Headmaster, enduring Draco's silence only for a brief minute before he no doubt realised it was not just hesitation. "Do you think Harry is dangerous?"

Another blank stare.

Was Potter dangerous?

What did it matter? What had happened had happened. He didn't want to explore his own consciousness in front of Mighty Old Albus. He didn't want to, nor care to. He shouldn't have to.

He closed that door in his mind.

Dumbledore was unmoved by Draco's refusal to answer.

"I often feel that the most important and vital weapon a student can leave here with is a clear knowledge of themselves. In these times of war, it has never been so necessary to have a firm feel of who you are. Where you see your place in all of this." Dumbledore smiled gently. "Of course I do not pretend miracles can happen, even in the wizarding world. I doubt even half of the students truly know themselves or know their direction in life." He folded his hands in front of him. "You see, Draco, you are not alone. These things that you feel—lack of direction, lack of meaning in your life—I daresay they are shared by many people in this school, student or otherwise. You may not know who you are, Draco. And you do not have to know. Not yet." He paused slightly. "But there will come a time, be it tomorrow or in ten years, where something will strike you with a purpose. Believe me. Whether we want it to or not, something will give us direction. We just have to keep our eyes open. Our heads above water."

Albus Dumbledore was powerful. No one could deny it. His words had the ability to penetrate you against your wishes. It was so difficult to ignore him. Every word. Because he so often told you things you didn't even realise you had given him reason to tell you. But you knew there were reasons. You knew they were reasons that made sense to you, just not that they would make sense to him.

Draco shook himself inwardly. Regardless, the Headmaster didn't know him. He couldn't come close. Draco wasn't just a generic mindless student wandering the castle halls lamenting over what on earth to do with himself. He wished he was. He would kill for that carelessness.

He resented the insinuation that he was just another student going through the turbulence of rocky adolescence, acting out admist his confusion of who he was, what life meant. Things weren't like that. They weren't.

He was stuck somewhere else. Somewhere beyond anywhere Dumbledore's wisdom could reach.

She was the only person that could touch him.

He heard Dumbledore sigh.

"Draco," he began again, as if about to embark on a long-winded warning for the fifth or sixth time in that hour, "you have already admitted that you started the fight." He paused, waited for a reaction, got nothing. "I would like to draw something to your attention. This is not the first fight you have started." Another pause. "This is one of many. A long line of bloody punch ups that can all be traced back to you, whether it be through your instruction or at your own hand. Many a Professor has caught you mid-exchange with students, be it verbal or physical. And this you cannot deny."

And many more times I haven't been caught. Believe me. So maybe this was your fault. You haven't been doing your fantastic job properly.

"Then why make me Head Boy?" Draco asked. A question that meant to stay in his head, perhaps.

"You were capable."

"Capable of what?"

"Capable of change. It was a risk. But one I believed would be worth the rewards to you. And to the school. Channelling those passions, Draco, would give you the potential to be a great leader. Giving you the responsibility-"

"I didn't stand a chance," Draco scoffed, "and you knew that. So why did you do it? Why did you think it would be okay to give that to me? Knowing you'd probably end up taking it away again?" That familiar prickly heat began to crawl across his skin.

"There is no point in getting angry. It will get you nowhere, I assure you."

"I'm not planning on getting anywhere, Headmaster," retorted Draco, straightening his posture. "I gave up on that idea a long time ago. Now I just want to know why you gave me Head Boy. If this is one of many fights I've had, why give me that honour? I hardly deserve it by those standards."

"Things aren't always that straightforward."

Draco's jaw clenched. A real fucking answer would be nice. "Was it because of the war? Was it because you thought if the son of a dead Death Eater could lead the school, could show that he was good, then that would give people hope? An example of reform? Returning from the dark side? What?"

"You know I do not wish to involve the politics of war at school. You will deal with enough of it when you leave. It cannot effect your education."

"But it did. And it has. For everyone. You can't deny it."

"The decision of Head Boy was not an easy one to make. I cannot pretend external realties do not influence these things, but they certainly do not steer them. There were a number of people we discussed, a number of factors to take into account. As I said, and as all the House Professors acknowledged, it was a risk. But I think you might agree that your violence, Draco, was at this point disappearing. The confrontations no more than any other student. It appeared as if you were changing."

But instead it was because my father had died. And I was broken. I didn't know what I was fighting for anymore. I wasn't changing. I had no one to change into. I was just...being.

"And so you thought it would be okay to give me that position," growled Draco, "knowing everything I was going through? You thought it would be a distraction? And you thought Hermione could help build bridges for me?" Draco shook his head. "Professor, with all due respect, you couldn't have been more wrong."

Dumbledore nodded, slowly. "And one of my greatest strengths is admitting my own mistakes. It is necessary for all of us."

Draco nodded, jaw clenched. "So you admit it was a mistake to give it to me?" he challenged. He didn't want it to be called a mistake. He didn't want it to be completely ripped from him like that.

"It was a mistake to think the consequences could be what I had hoped. Even then, that's all it was. Hope. I do not, however, believe I was incorrect in believing you were capable. You showed signs."

"But I wasn't, was I? Clearly. Not according to you at least."

"We are often able to do things we never actually manage to do. It's about attitude. It's about commitment. It's about circumstance."

"And you didn't envisage the circumstance of the Head Boy and Girl getting on so well?" Draco wished he would stop. Stick to the silence instead of weaving in and out of it. He was letting on too much.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Hermione has given me her version of events, Draco," he replied, not one to stray too long from the core of any matter. "So what is yours?"

Draco stiffened his jaw and clenched his teeth together. His mouth was not to open again. Not to Dumbledore. Not unless he was saying goodbye as he walked out of the office.

This time the silence lasted well over three minutes. And Dumbledore stared at him for every second.

Draco stared back.

After a long while, the Professor inhaled. "It is time that I tell you the full consequences of your actions, Draco," he began, "and the results of your unwillingness to cooperate." He placed his palms flat against his oaken desk. "I would like to remind you—t o assure you—that I will find out what happened. I will find out who else is implicated. And I will get to the very crux of whatever it is that has been running rampant throughout my school these past few weeks. So please, make no mistake about that."

You'll find out whatever it is you want to hear. The truth is a different thing entirely.

"But right now, let me inform you of the result of your actions. I cannot afford to suspend you, Draco. Not in your final year. There would be no point in a suspension other than to damage your performance in exams—decrease your marks even further. Taking you out and bringing you back is just—well—detrimental." He blinked, slowly. "And so I will not suspend you. And I will give you until Sunday evening to pack everything up and move back to the Slytherin chambers. That gives you today and tomorrow."

And the catch?

"But, of course, that is not all."

Of course.

"Listen to me carefully, Draco. Because I sincerely hope you believe me when I tell you this. If you are found fighting again, and that involves punching, kicking, any kind of physical abuse, then you will be removed from this school. Not suspended. Permanently removed. If you are discovered mid-fight—no matter who started it, no matter who provoked whom—if you have thrown a punch, Draco, that will be your final day at Hogwarts. There will be no compromise, no discussion, no mercy."

Draco stared.

"And I hope," the Headmaster continued, "that you understand why I have come to this conclusion. I want to give you one final chance. To change. To show yourself that you can grow despite the past, Draco. That you can be your own person, and not the work of someone else. These things you think are holding you back are only there as long as you let them be. Most things are perfectly within your control, whether you acknowledge this to be the case or not. It is easier to think decisions are dictated by the situation, by our circumstance, but this is very rarely the case. And so I hope you take this seriously. Because there will be no exceptions to this rule. Not anymore."

Right. No exceptions.

Except for Potter of course.

Draco was still staring at the Headmaster. His gaze had not wavered once. Because it was so important to show him how unafraid he was. How he only had one thing left to lose, and it wasn't his place at Hogwarts.

But he still felt that he had the right to ask the question. He still felt, despite this being the third time he would break his sworn silence, that he deserved to know. "And what about Potter?"

Dumbledore, plainly expecting the question, folded his hands again. "Harry will not be expelled if he is caught fighting. But that is not to say he won't be severely punished."

Draco began to laugh, but Dumbledore continued before he could retort.

"He does not have the same history at this school as you do, Draco. And I do not need to justify that. You may be bitter, you may resent me or Harry or anyone else involved, but it is the truth. And not even you can deny that. You are not the same person, and you have not hurt the same number of people. And that, I'm afraid to say, is a stark, damaging difference between you both. Even though you are just as capable, Draco, even though deep down you have the potential to achieve great, great things, you have chosen not to." Dumbledore hesitated. "Even though it is not too late to change your mind." He took another long, drawn out breath. "But for present purposes, there are consequences to the path you have embarked on. Consequences which I truly hope, Draco, you do not explore. For you have one final chance not to."

One final chance.

Draco wanted to leave now.

He was done here.


*


Ron didn't know whether to squeeze his hand or slap him round the face. Maybe both at the same time? No. Too odd.

Still. What was Harry thinking?

"I still don't understand," frowned Ron, passing Harry the glass of water from his bedside table. "I don't get any of it. And why isn't Malfoy in here with you? He deserves to have a few broken ribs as well."

Harry shrugged. "He did. He just—he had the opportunity to say no. And I didn't."

Ron bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t know what to say. To any of it.

“I wish I’d been there.”

“Well you weren’t. So there’s no point in thinking it.”

“I just wish this would all stop. I wish we could just go back to pretending like Malfoy doesn’t exist anymore.

It worked perfectly well last year. You two barely did more than exchange menacing looks.”

“Well you should stop wishing, Ron,” murmured Harry. “You should stop acting like none of this is happening. You tried the turning your back approach and it hasn’t worked.”

Ron frowned. “Listen, mate, that approach wasn’t just supposed to be for me, you know.”

“Yeah, well. It was a non-starter for me. I can’t do that like you can, Ron. You know I can’t. You’ve always been good at ignoring the obvious. It’s what you do.”

“That’s a bit unfair.”

“Is it?”

“I’m just trying to be the normal one, Harry. I’m trying to be the one you and Hermione have been for me all these years. The one who grounds people.”

Harry shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Sorry,” he breathed, “I know. I know you’ve just been trying to help. I just wish—I wish you’d realised by now that it’s not working.” He swallowed. “I mean...Where have you been, Ron? I can’t—I haven’t been able talk about this with you because you didn’t want to know. But it hasn’t gone away, has it? So when will you be ready to talk about it?”

Ron knew that Harry was right. And it was only because Ron had been so stubborn that he hadn’t realised it sooner. He was so determined to show Harry and Hermione that if everyone just calmed down they’d be able to forget about it all. If Ron could just remind them what it was they were destroying—how good it used to be, just the three of them—then it could all go back to normal.

Normal. Ron had used that word so many times in his head now. It had almost lost all meaning. Not least of all because everyone was so far from it.

And he didn’t want to admit that, yet again, he had been the slow one. Or the one to take the wrong approach. For once, he had wanted to be the mature one. Not the hopeless one.

Ron rubbed his thumb against his forehead. His head was pounding. He didn’t want to give up on that normality. No matter what Harry said. He didn’t want to accept it would never be back.

There was so much to care about in that moment. So much to have an opinion on, wonder about, formulate, speculate, turn over and over in his head. But above it all there was an underlying thread. Something, to Ron, that transcended all the trivialities of the past few weeks. All the suspicious behaviour and bloody noses. Something was far more important than what was wrong about everything and what needed to be made right.

He wished that Harry believed in the normality like he did. He wished he believed that there are some people that you will stay friends with forever. That it was a matter of fact. That it couldn’t change.

Surely, it couldn’t change.

Surely, he wasn’t wrong.

Because sometimes you knew these friendships straight away—sometimes you got this giddy sensation that it was all meant to be, and that this was a bond that would go the distance. That was Harry. That was Harry for him.
Or maybe you would discover it later, when first impressions strengthen, or maybe even change altogether. And that was Hermione. Annoying, domineering, clever Hermione. Turning out to be his best friend.

You could usually guess who it was you were more likely to stay with, and who it was that you’ll remember a few years down the line as a distant memory. It hurt to lose contact with people you wished were still in your life.

What was even scarier, however, were those people in your life that you were one hundred percent certain would stay with you forever, and then they don’t.

Something changes.

And you don’t know what that loss feels like until you’ve experienced it.

We’re talking sure. Surer than sure that fate or whatever it was that was out there meant you are destined to stay with each other until your dying day. A love that existed only in friendship. Free from the physical weight of sex.

Ron had this little dream of how the future would work out.

There could be a war. There probably would be a war. Not of the blazing-mass-of-lethal-magic-raining-down kind necessarily, but a battle. Many battles. There would be fighting. Ron was no expert in Divination but it didn’t take someone good at that kind of thing to work that out.

So there was no point in detailing this part of his future.

The parts that mattered involved the time after that. Because all of that—the war—would be over quickly, Ron liked to think. It had to be. He wasn’t spending his one life on earth involved in war. Not the whole of it at least. He’d already spent the first few years living through an awkward childhood full of family mishaps and freckles and extremely ginger hair. Whatever it was out there couldn’t be that cruel.

Ron liked to think that he, Harry and Hermione would be living on the same street. If not the same street, at least streets that were within half a mile of each other. The initial formation of this future plan involved these streets being as far, far, faraway as possible from his mother. And his father. And the Burrow in general. Not quite as far as his brother Charlie perhaps but the right amount of distance so that he couldn’t hear his mother nag him or be the victim of knitted clothes made from the most unnaturally itchy material on the face of this earth.

But, to be fair, he decided that part whilst he was fourteen, a moody—oh even moodier than now—teenager in the rebellious stage of life.

Since then Ron had grown up. He liked to think.

To be a man maybe. Or something.

Either way he had matured to realise he wanted to stay near his family. Because nothing was more important. Hating them, loving them, it was all so necessary, and Ron realised he very much needed it. Either that or he simply accepted he would absolutely never be able to get rid of them.

His kids would call Harry Uncle Harry. Cheesy, cringing, but fact. And they would be the coolest kids in Hogwarts providing Hogwarts was still standing and providing they went straight into Gryffindor of which, in the case of this not happening, Ron had already mentally prepared a very angry letter to the Headmaster of the school. Whomever that may be. They would be cool because they knew Harry. They knew Harry Potter. Oh yeah that’s right. Harry is basically family so if I were you I’d give me my wand back and apologise for tripping me up. No longer would being a Weasley be the same as effectively sticking a sign on your back that said “please...no really please...treat me like shit”.

And Hermione. Hermione would be around. She would no doubt have made them twice the men they otherwise would have been. Ron and Harry. She would have straightened them out in that tricky period straight after school ends, seen that they followed through every job opportunity that they came across and without a doubt made sure they treated their women respectably. Yes. Ron had already accepted that Hermione was likely to be responsible for his job, his marriage, his haircuts right up until the latter... Those kind of things.

Nothing would change. The dynamic between them would stay exactly the same as it had always been since first year. They would have fun, they would argue, they would spend a few days being utterly sick of each other here and there but mainly, and above all, they would love each other in a way Ron didn’t even know was possible outside your blood relatives.

Ron had a plan. To stay together, Ron and Harry and Hermione, until his dying day.

This was why it hurt so much. It hurt so much, this feeling that was growing in his stomach.

For the first in these six and a bit years with them, Ron was beginning to doubt this future.

“Hermione didn’t deny it this time, Ron,” muttered Harry, interrupting his thoughts. “She’s been with him. With Malfoy. They’re together or they were together or something. I can’t know for sure because—because she won’t tell me the truth. It’s only from her silence that I can get anything at all.” Harry shook his head. “So unlike her. So unlike Hermione.”

Ron looked down. His chest was burning with an unusual pain. The pain of being told what he already knew. As if it were the words that suddenly made it real. After a short while, he looked up, nodded slightly. “So that’s it then,” he replied, “We just—we just let her get on with it, do we?”

Harry exhaled and looked to the side briefly. “I don’t know, Ron,” he answered. “I don’t—I don’t know. I’m so fed up of not fucking knowing.”

“He can’t be good for her though. We know that. She—she has to work that out. She will do, eventually. It’s Hermione.”

Harry sniffed, wincing slightly at the obvious pain shooting up his nose. “Like I said, I don’t know anymore.”
“But why? I mean—you’ve been battling to stop this all term. It’s all you’ve cared about, Harry. It’s what—it’s what I should have cared about. What I did care about. I just— I’m sorry, mate.”

Harry shook his head, “Don’t apologise. Maybe things would be better if I hadn’t bothered. Maybe— maybe I pushed her towards him. I was so angry, Ron. I just spent my time being so angry. That’s all I offered her. What did I expect? For her to come running into my comforting arms when all I did was frown and punch and hate.”

“I wasn’t much better. I just— I didn’t really want to know about any of it half the time. I just wanted her to be normal again. Wasn’t interested in helping her get there.”

Harry took a deep breath. “So here we are then,” he murmured. “Who’s fault really was this? Was it ours or his? Us or Malfoy? I don’t even know anymore.”

“Do you think it’s too late?” asked Ron.

“Too late to do what?”

“To say sorry?”

Harry was quiet. Quiet for long enough for Ron to realise that he wasn’t going to answer.

Because maybe it was too late. Maybe it was too late to do anything now.

Instead, maybe he should just keep doubting that future he longed for.

*

“You should stop fussing.”

Hermione slammed a drawer, turning round slowly to face him, her back against the wooden chest. “Don’t,” she breathed. “Or you can do this yourself.”

“I want to do this myself. I told you that three times, Hermione,” replied Draco, calmly. He was leaning against the wall, head forward, hands in his pockets. A casual stance to mask the growing anxiety.

“I feel like—that it’s better this way,” she said, averting his gaze and dumping the robes into his trunk. She glanced around the room, hunting for another distraction of books or broomsticks to gather up and pack away.

But Draco didn’t have very many things. He didn’t like things. Always the minimalist to balance out the volumes inside his head. Draco could better control the objects in his surroundings when there were only a few to keep in order.

“Why is it better this way?” asked Draco, watching her white fingernails clasping a textbook that he had opened once this year.

“We can get it done with. Because you’re going and so it’s better to just get it done with.”

Her hair was especially beautiful today. Wild and tossed in every direction as she pottered around his room. Most items were going straight into the trunk. No folding. No order. No Hermione in any of it. Some things she picked up and put down again. Some things she simply ran her fingers over lightly. But quickly. It was all very hurried.

“I thought I deserved it,” said Draco, now a master at playing unruffled by the various things she did that quickened his heartbeat. She had been biting her lip for the past few seconds and Draco had yet to find the moment that this did not affect him. Fighting the urge to touch her.

“You do,” she said, opening a drawer for the third time and looking disappointed to find nothing. “You do.”

“Is that why it’s better to just get it over with?” he asked, eyeing her. “I should be out of your life as fast as possible?”

Hermione’s frantic movements stilled momentarily. “Out of my—out of my life?” she asked, looking at him sideways. “You’re not—” She shook her head and let out a forced laugh. “You’re not going out of my life though. You’re just going back to House Chambers and that’s not out of my life. That’s just not next to me. Next to where I sleep. In the other room.”

Draco’s heart beat faster.

“Which is a good thing.” She let out a laugh again—“Obviously!”— and walked over to the bed. She smoothed the covers. “We’d be crazy to think it as anything other than a good thing. Someone has made the change that we were incapable of making ourselves.”

“The change we didn’t want to make.”

Hermione exhaled loudly in reply.

“Are you going to give us a proper moment to talk?” continued Draco.

“We’re talking now.”

“Not really. I can’t really talk to you if you’re doing this. You need to stop.”

“It needs to be done.”

“But you’ve done it already. It’s done, Hermione.”

“There’s always something that gets missed,” she replied. “Under the bed or in the back of a wardrobe or somewhere. I’ll find it and you’ll be grateful.”

“I’ll be more grateful if you sit down.”

“Well I’d be even more grateful if you were quiet and let me get on with it.”

Draco laughed.

“What?” Her eyebrows raised in a confrontational manner.

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied, “I’ll let you finish then.” He pushed away from the wall and straightened his posture. “I’ll be waiting downstairs.”

Hermione shrugged.

He closed the door quietly behind him.

*

Draco was sitting, extinguishing and relighting the fire with his wand when she came down.

He looked over the back of his chair as he heard her footsteps, his gaze following her until she stopped next to the other chair a metre or so from him. He gestured at it for her to sit down. She frowned slightly as she did so.

Before he could speak her lips parted hesitantly. “I wasn’t going to bother,” she said, looking down. “I was going to just go to my room. But then I thought this might be our last opportunity in a while. To talk.”
Draco nodded. To talk. He noted the carefully placed emphasis.

She looked up at him and settled herself more firmly in the chair, breathing in deeply as she did so in some apparent effort to steady herself. “But I would like to go first,” she continued. “I don’t want anything to descend into a conflict. Not today. Not before you go.” She seemed to be struggling to keep her eyes on his and so instead she focused on the fire that Draco had left alight. “Whatever it is that you have to say to me, please don’t say it if it’s going to upset me. Or if you know that what I’ll say in response is going to upset you. Just because that’s what we do best doesn’t mean we should end it like that.”

“I’m not ending anything. This isn’t ending anything. I wanted to… say that, really.”

Her eyes caught his again, briefly, and he felt her tense up.

He could never quite expect anyone to understand what it was like when the two of them were in the same room together. How to just call it wonderful would be wrong. And to call it terrible would be to say too little. And that it was both of those things together, without compromise. He could never explain what it was like to feel those things running parallel to one another all over his burning skin. And it did burn. His skin did burn. She made him feel physically ill with desire.

And he covered it so expertly. He could hold her gaze. He could speak to her without stumbling. He had, over the past weeks, learned to hide it all. Because he had no choice. Because the reality would scare her to death.
Words could never give him away because they simply couldn’t. He could only ever show her. And those rare moments where she let him, where it became too much to resist, were the only ways she could ever truly begin to know. When she was lying underneath him. When she was moving underneath him. When he was caught between feather touches and breaking every bone in her body with hunger.

And if obsession and infatuation could ever end well was still untold. Whether it was short and painful and would just leave him searing, he couldn’t know. Could it grow and change and become something more beautiful and delicate and controlled? Was he capable of that?

Every conversation Draco had ever had with Hermione had been littered with imagery behind his eyes and words and movement. Thoughts of her skin against his was a backdrop to every moment they had ever shared together, no matter how vulgar or cruel. And it had been so painful for Draco to watch. It had become obsessive and compulsive and he couldn’t rid it from his mind. And that hurt. Son of a Death Eater. Draco Malfoy. It hurt him to have these thoughts that he truly hadn’t wanted.

Not at first.

The first time he ever thought it. He hadn’t wanted it. She was younger and it was warm outside and she had these bare legs. And they were against the grass. These bare legs were moving against the grass as she stretched out. And her lips had parted in a stifled yawn as some boy was talking next to her. Near her. And she lifted her skirt a mere fraction as she scratched her thigh and the whole world began throbbing around Draco. So he turned around and walked away and walked quickly. And didn’t think of it again.

Crazy adolescence. Raging hormones. That’s all it was. It meant nothing.

Until the second time.

“I don’t think we really do need to…“ Hermione hesitated briefly, “…to be having this discussion.” She looked out in front of her, and slowly across the room until her eyes fell upon Draco. “I don’t think it helps. I think—”

“You think this is a way out?”

Hermione exhaled. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“You’re really going to think that? After all this?” His voice was calm. For as long as he could, he would remain composed.

“I said I don’t know,” she replied, slight frustration breaking momentarily into her voice before vanishing again. “This—you—leaving like you are, and—Harry—he’s still in the hospital wing and— Ron.”

Draco’s jaw clenched. “Empty. Empty words again, Granger.”

She nodded. “I know. Empty to you. But not to me.”

“I thought we were done with this.”

Hermione’s tongue swept across her dry lips. “Me too. I mean we are. I just— I don’t know. I can’t think at the moment. Everything has happened so fast. And I don’t want to fight. I said I didn’t want to fight.”

They’d never really and truly spoken to each other. It never got anywhere.

The words would fly out, pass by or bounce off. Rarely ever absorbed. Unless they were drenched with something that only led to bad things. The only progress their relationship ever made was down to actions. Things they did. Violence. Sex. Those were the things that had carried them through time. Words had always been useless. Insanely repetitive.

As if Draco was half expecting things to just move on, pick up like the plot of a story. Words to change. People to start saying things differently. Have epiphanies. Make sense of things. Plots had to move on at some point. You could only go over things so many times before you didn’t have a story anymore. You just had the bland, boring reality of it all. There was no escapism in that.

It had to change. It had to change if he was going to convince her of anything at all. Just one conversation without demonstration. Just words.

“I would like to say something. And if in turn you would like to reply with the same old defensive shit, Granger, then by all means, please do so. But I can’t promise I’ll listen to it. Because I’ve heard it all before and quite frankly you’re obsessed with it. These comfort words of yours.” Before her growing frown could manifest itself in words, he continued. “And I don’t blame you for it. You have much more to lose than I do. You still have family and friends. You still have Head Girl. And you risk losing it all for me.”

Of course the frown had long ago deepened and so her usual frustration was nevertheless vocalised. “Don’t call it defensive shit. Call it common sense.”

“Whatever.”

“Call it reason. Call it—call it a reaction to all the pain you’ve caused us.”

“I said whatever. Semantics.”

“Are you trying to wind me up?”

“No. You’re winding yourself up. Like you always do,” he answered. “You wonder why you’re trapped in this? It’s because you don’t let yourself out. You keep yourself in the same place, every time. You’re afraid to let yourself feel anything for real and instead you waste all your energy denying it.”

Hermione slowly placed both of her palms flat on her lap, a gesture that told Draco she was struggling to keep her cool. She looked up and smiled at him rather sarcastically.

“So let’s just go over this, shall we?” she asked, “The reason I don’t let myself fully acknowledge any feelings I may have for you is because of me, is it? Because I love emotionally and physically torturing myself, do I? It couldn’t possibly be because every time I come close to recognising my feelings you do something like, say, put Harry in hospital? Or suddenly have a crises of confidence and decide that you don’t want to get involved with a mudblood after all? Or perhaps you start acting all friendly with the Slytherin bunch like none of this ever even happened?” She laughed and slapped her forehead with her palm. “Wow, Draco, thank you so much for clearing that up for me! I always need to be told these things about myself as I’m obviously completely oblivious!”

Draco shifted in his seat. “Very funny,” he retorted, “But can we at least just try and keep it calm? You said you didn’t want to fight.”

“Yeah because I’m also the one that always gets all hot-headed and panicky about things, aren’t I? Me and only me.” Hermione stood up as she spoke, fairly stunted in her movement as if she didn’t know which direction to take. Instead she simply stood there uncomfortably, looking down on Draco with impatient eyes.

“Why are you getting all aggressive about this? I just want us to talk. If not, you to listen.”

“Well what if I’m not in the mood, Malfoy? Did you ever think I might not be in the mood? For you to talk at me and make these deep observations about me or Harry or Ron? Because you know us so well, don’t you?!” Her fists had clenched by her side.

Draco should have seen this coming. Hermione’s jumpy attitude upstairs was adequate foundation for an outburst of frustration. And of course it would happen as soon as he opened his mouth. But she was also angry. Very angry about something. Maybe that should have been plainly understandable to Draco all things considered. But he just couldn’t find it in his temperament to be okay with it. Because he had plans for this conversation. Plans to tell her something integral to these past few months. And if the stubborn girl would just let him talk then maybe she’d see that there was progress to be made after all.

Draco joined her in standing, the soothingly familiar difference in height allowing him to look down at her again.

“Are you hearing yourself?” frowned Draco, raising his voice slightly to meet hers. “To say I claim to know so much about you is a bit rich coming from you, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve spent many hours deliberating over my complex psyche and making the relevant observations. And you’re wetting yourself to just unravel it all for me, right, Granger? You can understand people like me who can’t even understand themselves? Don’t pretend like you aren’t constantly itching to vocalise your daily notes on my headcase behavioural patterns.”

“Actually, I do regularly find myself fighting back to urge to tell you to get over yourself!”

“What the fuck?” Draco snapped, narrowing his eyes.

“You’ve got issues. You’ve got history. And you’re right, it is complex, and I do find it fascinating how a man so arrogant and self-confident can be so utterly self-deprecating on the inside.”

Draco cringed inwardly. He could feel his stare was fierce.

“But the thing is,” she continued, “I don’t feel bad for you—”

“Good, because I don’t need you to feel bad for me.”

“I feel frustrated with you. I feel angry at you. Because you act like you’re the only one who’s got problems.”

“Excuse me?”

“You act like you’re the only one who’s been affected by the war! The only one to lose a parent. The only one to get caught up between two sides. Like it’s a burden that no one can understand . A golden pass to act like a complete arse and—my god—for all his wonderful attributes, I know Dumbledore has let you off more times than he should of because of it. Because of your background and the shit you have to deal with just buzzing around in your head. I’m glad he didn’t expel you. But only for selfish, irrational reasons. Objectively you should have been kicked out a long time ago.”

“You’re doing it again—acting like you know me! A little bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

But Hermione charged blindly past his comments. “You have such abilities, Malfoy! Ones most students can never hope of reaching in their entire lives. You’re extremely intelligent. You can be insufferably charming when you need to be. You could, if you really wanted to, have or do anything. But instead you waste it all! You channel it in all these unforgivable directions and you excuse yourself the entire time because you’re so complicated! Because you’ve got it so hard! You’re Draco Malfoy and your father is dead! Your father is dead but you’re still here!”

“Shut up!” he exclaimed, his words overlapping hers. “Enough analysis! You never tire of places to hide, do you, Granger? Whether its books or mindless commentary on others! Anyone but yourself!”

“Mindless?! You’re only saying that because you know its true. Because you know that’s the real reason you hate yourself so much. It’s not because you can’t move past it all, it’s not because there’s anything real and tangible standing in your way. It’s because you don’t want to do it! It’s because you’re scared to. You’re scared to fail but the truth is you’re already failing. You’re failing everyday that you sit there and listen to your own head telling you you’re not worth anything anymore! That you’ve disappointed your father. But so what? You will never be what your father wanted you to be, Malfoy. And I think that’s the luckiest escape of all!”

Draco was breathing heavily through his nostrils. How dare she. How dare she enter into him like this, rummage around and start packaging things up in his head like they didn’t need to be there anymore. Like it’s that simple. Like he could just label the past accordingly and face a bright new future with a renewed sense of self-worth which was supposed to come from where exactly?

“The moment you start talking about my father,” growled Draco through gritted teeth, “You start to enter territory that your pretty little head is best staying away from. Because you couldn’t even begin—not even come close—to understanding my father.”

“I’m not trying to. This is about you!”

“And never about you! Or us! Just stop trying to solve me, Granger! I’m not a fucking project! I’m not your beloved work!”

“I have to, Draco! I have to try and make sense of you! And I’m sorry for it—I’m sorry that it’s intruding and interfering and hypocritical but I can’t help it! I’m scared that if I let myself get close to you then that will be the final push that shoves you right back to the other side of that skull of yours, the side where you hated all of this! The side where I made you sick! What if the reality of me turning round and spouting a load of feelings triggers that in you? Because I wouldn’t be surprised! I don’t trust you! I don’t! My God I don’t even trust myself! I can’t rely on you to be there because you change on a daily basis. So I have to try and map you out and break you down into smaller pieces—because I can’t manage this otherwise. I have to try my best to understand you because I can’t get into this without knowing! I can’t let my guard down without really knowing who you are. I won’t let myself. I can’t let myself trust you like that when I can barely work you out!”

“Yes, okay? Yes! I change. Every minute. My thoughts bounce from one to the other and invariably they’re polar opposites and I can’t seem to find any kind of middle ground with anything! I just continue to feel these insanely conflicting emotions parallel to one another all the fucking time! And it’s hard. But I’m managing. I can manage. I have been recently- just- with you. You, Granger. You’ve given me something solid. You’ve given me a constant. For the past couple of weeks. It’s stayed at a constant. And I’m finally acknowledging that.”

“What are you talking about? What’s stayed at a constant? The violence? The drama? Draco, nothing has changed.”

“You really think that?” asked Draco, only half attempting to conceal the faint hurt in his voice. “You can honestly say that you haven’t noticed a difference in me? In the way I talk to you? Act around you?”

“We still argue. And you might have stopped throwing around those dirty words so much but so what? Am I supposed to thank you for it?”

“No, Granger, you’re not supposed to thank me for it. I’m not asking you to be grateful, I’m just asking you to recognise it. And understand what it means.”

“It means this is just one phase before the next one starts. It means I’m more likely to slip into trusting you when I know I shouldn’t.” She shook her head. “ I shouldn’t trust you. This isn’t me. This… this isn’t me.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Granger.”

“But I’d be a fool to think anything different!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. Do you need reassurance? Do you need me to tell you I’m good now and you can believe anything I say? Even I know its not that simple! You’re a big girl, Hermione, you don’t need my words of comfort. You can work it out by yourself. You have to work it out by yourself. No one can tell you anything.”

“Typical!” she spat. “Typical that you would try and turn this round to imply I’m the one that needs to work things out! Like you’ve solved your part and I’m still struggling with mine! Like you got their first,and I’m left behind battling denial!”

“Got where first, Hermione?” He took a confident step towards her, closing the gap between them almost perfectly. “Go on, tell me. Where am I?”

She shook her head, looking up at him through her erratic breathing. Her frown was deep. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered, eyes directly focused on his. “Because I’m not there.”

“How can you be so sure?”

There was a moment of silence of distraction between them both, the air pulsating around them. Draco was overcome by the need to sink into her entirely. To press himself against her so hard that they would collapse into each other.

He pulled her into him, pushing his mouth into hers so hard he had to steady her, hands entangled in her hair, moving around to cup her face. And then as quickly as it had happened, Hermione pushed him away, hand covering her mouth as if she’d been punched.

She paced towards the window on the other side of the room.

He followed her, panting. “Tell me,” he breathed. “Tell me where you think I am. Because if you know it—if you know it then you must feel it too. Because how else would you recognise it, Hermione?”
“You just… you throw in distractions and expect me to just—”

“Tell me!” His voice echoed around the room, frustration reverberating off the walls.

“No!” she shouted back, “Two minutes has passed now so you could be feeling something completely different! And I wouldn’t want to foolishly assume consistency in your emotions, Malfoy!”

“Fine!” He threw his hands up in the air. “Then I’ll tell you!”

“No, I don’t need you to!” she exclaimed, voice breaking with the threat of tears. “I don’t need to hear it, Malfoy! Whatever it is, I don’t want to!”

“But you already know!”

“I don’t need to!”

“Why are you so afraid of hearing things out loud? Why are we allowed all this unspoken shit but then the words are forbidden? As if that makes it any more blindingly real than it already is! It’s just a case of acknowledging what’s already there, Hermione!”

She started for the door, feet quick, breaking into a run. Draco moved across to intercept her, grabbing her from behind to twist her around. He had both her wrists in his grip, the flash of many memories darting across his eyes as he backed her into the wall. She was shaking her head through tears. Tears falling at a speed that alarmed Draco. They broke him even harder than her refusal to let him in. Affected him more than her attempt to escape.

“Let me go,” she sobbed. “Please. Let me go.” Her words merged into one another.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed, voice struggling, “I just— I can’t wait any more, Hermione...”

“Please,” she shook her head again, a tear dropping straight to the ground, “I’m tired, and… and I’m tired. This isn’t me. It’s not. I’m different. I didn’t want to do this, Draco. Any of this. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s not,” he muttered, softly now, gently letting go of her wrists. “It’s not your fault.”
Hermione’s hands fell to her sides, her head cocked back against the wall as her chest shook up and down with jagged breathing. As Draco brought his face close to hers, cupping her cheeks in his hands.

“Please, Draco,” she murmured, voice quivering.

“I love you, Hermione.”

A stifled gasp caught in her throat, her head starting to shake again.

“No, you don’t...”

It was simple. A simplicity that hit him like a freight train. Riddled with complexities and ambiguity right up until the point he got there. Right up until the point he loved her enough for it to be blazingly obvious, for it to be impossible to deny.

Love being something that he couldn’t quite define with words. It only had a name. And it was what it was. Whatever that was between them. And he didn’t care if it was different to how it was supposed to be, or how people said it should be. It just arrived at some point. No conscious decisions taken. Recognising he loved Hermione Granger was like recognising the sky was blue on a bright winter’s morning. Like recognising the colour of her eyes or the language that she spoke. It was because it was there, whispering in the air around them.

“Yes, I do,” he breathed, “I love you.”


*


Hermione’s pulse was in her throat. Her fingers, her cheeks, her head. It was everywhere. Raging gloriously and horrifically all at once.

She was trying to understand his words. She was trying to believe he really said them. Draco Malfoy.
Telling Hermione he loved her.

It was so absolutely anything but normal. It was so much further away than whatever it was she remembered before. It was clearly, brutally staring the situation straight in the face. This was what it was now. Love. A warped, perverted sense of love.

That was how distorted everything was. Distortion, Hermione. Remember that. Nothing was what it seemed. It just wasn’t. Because you’re not you and this wasn’t what you wanted. That girl upstairs on the bathroom floor, she made one too many mistakes and never got up. Instead, you got up for her and kept on making them. So many now you barely know yourself.

You don’t know yourself. And so you can’t trust yourself.

“I have to go.”

“What?”

“I have to go, Draco. I need—I need to go—”

“Hermione, don’t—you can’t—” A look of apprehension shot across his face.

She knew what he had done. She knew what it must have taken for him to do it. And she was so sorry. She was so sorry, Draco. She didn’t know if it was real or not. Real or true. Certainly not right. How could she know any of it? Everything was distorted. She wasn’t herself.

Remember.

“I can’t do this, Draco, I’m sorry.”

“But— you can’t just go, Hermione. You can’t—you can’t just go like that. Let’s at least talk.”

What was the safest option? What could bring her closest to the girl she was before the mistakes?

“Draco...” she murmured, shaking her head, “I don’t... I’m sorry.”

Draco stepped away from her, cautiously. “You don’t what?” he asked, head cocked to the side incredulously.

She hesitated. “I don’t love you.”

Nothing could prepare her for the pain that suddenly shot through her. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to run away. She didn’t want to have to look at him.

Draco’s breath seem to fail him for an instant, as if he had been rammed in the stomach. “You’re lying.”

Her cheeks were wet with tears. She shook her head.

“You’re lying, Hermione,” he repeated, voice low, cracking slightly.”I know you. This is just you—you’re denying it. Like everything else. I know you are.”

She kept shaking her head, her lips shut tightly to fight back the sobbing.

“Why do you always have to fight everything?” asked Draco, breathlessly. He stood apart from her now, several feet or so between them, a pained look of disbelief on his face. He seemed to think for a moment. Took a deep breath. Looked around him as if searching for words. “I just—okay,” he said, exhaling, shaking his head and laughing slightly as he turned his back to her and faced the window, “I don’t—I’m not expecting anything back right now. It takes you longer. I get that.”

“Draco...please. Don’t do this.”

“You won’t say it back. If ever. I don’t… I don’t even need to hear the words. Because I’ll feel it, Hermione. I feel it when it happens.”

She was quiet.

Draco nodded to himself. It was a little late—but he had to regain face. Draco always had to eventually. She noticed that. He had to stand up tall and laugh off his initial reaction. Even though it was so utterly pointless with her.

“I don’t think you understand...” She trailed off.

He hadn’t turned back to face her yet. She could see his shoulders rising and falling with his breathing.

“I didn’t want you to say it, Draco,” she continued again, voice constantly breaking through tears. “There’s no point in it. You don’t know… you don’t know if its real or not—”

Draco turned back. “Of course I know, Hermione,” he frowned. “Of course I know. I’m absolutely certain. Do you think I would have said it if I wasn’t? Do you think I’d take that risk?” He tried to settle his breathing, “In my head, the words—they sound unforgivable. But mostly… they sound… they sound clear. The clearest thing I’ve ever thought. I love you.”

“Stop it.”

“Why?” he laughed. “Why, Hermione?!”

“Because! Because whoever it is you think you love, it’s not really me! This isn’t me!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t really know me, Draco! You know this… this girl. This girl who I am around you, who these last few months have slowly turned me into.”

Draco shook his head. “No, Hermione,” he breathed, taking a step in her direction, “I love all of you. Every side of you. Hurting, happy, obnoxious. There may be these things that are clouding around you right now but I can still see you. Underneath it all. You’re still there. And that’s why—that’s why I need you. Because no matter what you do my feelings never seem to change or go away. I just— I can rely on it. I can rely on it to always be there. The way I feel about you.”

“Draco, please.”

“No!” His voice was so loud. Strained and angry. “I don’t need anything back from you but don’t— don’t dismiss it like that! Don’t stamp on it like it shouldn’t be there!”

“But can’t you understand?! Everything is warped! We can’t see above our emotions! We’re drowning in them. How can you possibly trust your feelings at a time like this?”

“Because some things are too powerful to deny! You just know they’re there. When will you get that?”

“Or maybe… maybe it’s just an illusion! Like all of this! I can’t breathe in it let alone trust the way I feel about it!”

“Then fine, Hermione! Fine! Fuck back off to Potter and pretend like I never told you, if that’s what you want!”

“You shouldn’t have said it!” she cried. “I tried to stop you!”

“It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t change anything! Whether I tell you or not, it’s still there! I hate you but I always love you! That’s what it comes back to, and I’m so fucking sorry for it, Granger!”

“Well I don’t love you!” she cried. “How could I possibly love someone who’s done this to me?! I hate myself! You’ve made me hate myself!”

“Then go! Fucking leave, Granger! You’re obviously dying to!” Pain. Pain splattered all over his pale face.

Hermione was heavily fighting the urge to be sick now. Flashes of violence shooting in and out of her memory constantly. Violent kisses and screams. So much screaming. Too much that wouldn’t leave her alone for one minute to just breathe.

Had to get out.

The door slammed behind her; she stumbled down the stone steps away from the dormitory and collapsed to her knees at the bottom, retching. Nothing coming out. Just the painful lurching of her stomach.

Did she love him?

Did it matter?

This was Hermione, now.


*