Spring Fic Request for Em/akathesia
Spring Fic Request for Em/akathesia
Title: Revolutions
Author: lepetitarsenic
Rating: PG? No sex!
Summary: "The world's still turning," she commented, walking back on the path home. He quirked a small smile. "It is."
Beta: None! I am a bad person who does not use betas, mostly because I am awful about responding in a timely manner/don't really know anyone in-fandom. I'm really sorry, I know it was a requirement.
Written for: Em/akathesia. Em, I hope the "time" theme came through, and I dearly hope you like this!
It was too bright.
Draco turned his face away from the sunlight streaming into the common room, sore muscles coming to life at the movement. He feel asleep most nights in front of the fireplace; it was better than going back to the dorms and facing all the empty blathering on from his roommates. After and later and next year... next month. A few weeks and it'd be over. My father's arranged it and my mother's got a friend at and all those stupid things that didn't matter anywhere but in a Slytherin dormitory room and were very soon to become obsolete.
He had all of those things too, of course; he had the most and best of them. But it wasn't much of anything to be proud of.
He blinked the hot light out of his eyes, only really half aware. His skin was warm where the sun had touched it. Draco had always been slow to wake, particularly when there was no real point in getting up; there was nothing left to do but wait, now. Getting dressed was a singular pleasure, and the stream of cold water washing human grime away was one of the few things he still trusted himself to feel fully. He'd been a morning person, once; it wasn't that he was avoiding.
He took his meals upstairs in the dormitory room, at times when everyone else was sure to be in the Hall. Sometimes he flipped through his textbooks, and sometimes he stared out the window; sometimes, he lay out on his bed in the sunlight that filtered through, as if he could take it into himself and it would warm him. He never spent time in the common room, except for late nights and early mornings, blessedly alone. Quidditch season was over, and social events were easy enough to beg off.
He was doing everything in his power to avoid human contact here, at the end; he simply had no patience for it anymore. The futility of it hit him full-on every morning. What did any of it matter? Nothing he said mattered; it mattered so much to Pansy, and Crabbe, and Goyle, and all of them, but it didn't matter a whit to him. He had nothing left to learn. No one left to learn things from. There was only one last corner that remained gloriously unexplored... one last tie unsevered.
When he thought back on the sheer amount of time he'd spent, plotting and whispering in corridors and breaking into the potions storage room, it boggled the mind. What had he found so important? He couldn't well imagine it now. Caring that much about something- anything- was a capacity he was sure had gone way of his father and the Dark Lord; vague memories of voices, and troublesome emotions, never to venture again past dream.
But still. Slick potions slipped in front of Potter on the way back from Transfiguration, a jab or two at Weasley's back in the dungeons, and Granger- well, Granger was a bit tougher to crack. She'd turn around and roll her eyes and sigh
"Honestly, Malfoy, will you never grow up?"
and he didn't know what she meant by that, exactly, because he hardly felt grown most times. He was well-dressed and well-spoken and well-educated and as well-prepared and equipped for leaving school as he could imagine anyone had ever been, but growing... he was much the same, and honestly, so was she.
But they weren't. Not quite. They were still the same at the core, Potter still the hero and Weasley still the squire and Granger still a brain with legs, and he was still himself and so was Pansy still Pansy and Crabbe and Goyle- but they were becoming obsolete, too. No one would remember the well-timed parchment he'd slipped to Potter during their potions final, or that Fleur Delacour had been his date to the seventh year ball, or Pansy's fit of jealous rage; a good eye for trouble wouldn't matter anymore, nor would a good nose for dungbombs, or a good sense of when Weasley was sneaking up on you, which wasn't particularly hard to come by anyway. Everything he'd known and everything he'd become and everything he'd conquered was slipping away.
And God, was he tired. He was tired of sitting at the same exact dining hall table in the same exact seats. Tired of Crabbe and Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode, tired of Pansy fawning all over him as if he were something special, tired of never quite being comfortable around Theodore Nott and never quite warming up to Blaise Zabini. He was tired of it all, everything he knew so damn well and had never properly finished and it was all coming to a swift, final end. So why did he feel so bloody miserable?
Draco groaned, struggling amongst the tangle of pillows into a sitting position. There is was.
It was all so damnably simple. Maybe this happens to all of us when we graduate, he thought, tired eyes peering up at the line of snoring Slytherin class portraits on the wall. There was his father's, and just a bit further down, Professor Snape's. Maybe even Professor Snape had felt it. Maybe Professor Snape had turned dour- hard to imagine- and withdrawn from his school chums, if he even had any. Maybe he'd taken to reading all afternoon in the Seventh Year's dormitories, and sneaking out to the Owlery at night. Maybe he'd hated all his housemates and hated all his teachers and started having fond, nostalgic feelings for- God- Potter's father, or Sirius Black.
It didn't seem likely.
But the thought made him feel better.
------
It was never going to happen, she decided. It had been seven years already, and if they didn't know her by now- didn't recognize her by now- they'd never know her, or recognize her, or consider her a human being.
It wasn't much, what she was asking. Just an arm slung around a shoulder or an elbow in the ribs or an off-color joke. Ron and Harry- yes, Ron and Harry bestowed those precious gifts daily, each morning over breakfast, every late night curled up in the common room. But everyone else she knew- or thought she knew- treated her like a doll, or a teacher, like she might snap or snap at them if they played too roughly. Or spoke too honestly. Or invited her home for summer hols, God forbid.
When would they grow up? They weren't fourteen anymore, all caught up in who their parents were or what colors were on the stripes of their ties. Harry had turned out a hero, yes, and Ron had turned out to be an excellent Quidditch player, true to blood, and Ginny was more than enough for Harry after all he'd been through and she- well? She was the most brilliant Muggle to ever come out of Hogwarts, and she'd never be anything more. Not to Seamus Finnegan or Lavender or Parvati or all those other people she knew or knew her. Or thought they knew her.
She was so much more simple and infinitely more complex than anyone gave her credit for, and she was damnably tired of working around their ignorance. They'd press a butterbeer into her hands at parties and shift awkwardly for a moment and ask about their Arithmancy homework and catch some other friend passing by out of the corner of their eye and go. It wasn't that she didn't have anything to say to them; God knew she had plenty to say. But she wanted to talk about the things that mattered, things like death and religion and quantum physics and the Goblin rebellion of 1412. It was interesting; it was fascinating. But they were all so caught up in kissing and fighting and doing useless things that didn't matter to anyone or anything that they couldn't stop to listen.
It hurt. God, it hurt that she couldn't do those things, that they wouldn't- let her. Furiously, she wiped a hot tear out of her eye, staring up at the arched stone ceiling of the abandoned girl's bathroom. How long could this go on? Two weeks, of course, but then- a different bathroom, a different badge on the front of her robe and a different set of expectations, unfulfilled and grating and burning in the pit of her stomach.
She sniffed and stood, pushing the broken door open with one hand and stepping out of the stall. Myrtle was gone; no one knew where. She had said that she and Hermione weren't so very different, once. Hermione had never known how much.
She shook her head, righting her Head Girl's badge on her robes and rubbing the redness out of her eyes as best she could. There was no point in dwelling on it anymore. Couldn't she just live these last two weeks for whatever they were worth? But Hermione wasn't the sort of girl to not consider things. It would go against her very nature.
That was it. She wasn't being melancholy, just- coming to terms with the knowledge she'd gleaned about her place in the world. It was only a matter of rationally accepting a logical truth. She'd never belonged here. Or anywhere else. And she'd never belong anywhere but in between Ron and Harry.
But they couldn't stay with her forever.
She walked out into the corridor and tried hard not to think about it.
-------
Draco did up the last buttons on his oxford, then deftly straightened the creases out of the thin cotton as he studied himself in the mirror. It didn't really matter, he supposed. It wasn't like anyone would see. But he liked to feel presentable; presentable was presentable, no matter where you were.
He slipped his school robe over his shoulders, fastened it shut, and started up the stairs toward the common room. Perhaps he'd manage to get some work done; everyone else was outside, he imagined, on the pitch or in the woods or down at Hogsmeade. No reason to stick around on a Saturday morning; by the time you were a seventh year, there was nothing around to hold your attention.
The transfiguration classroom was his best bet. McGonagall never locked it (and who would have the gall to take anything from her?), and even he had been having some trouble with her advanced lessons. It wasn't for lack of skill, he just couldn't- couldn't muster up any energy for the subject, that one or any other. It all seemed so futile.
He turned a corner on the second floor, right by old Myrtle's bathroom, and was surprised to see another body in the corridors at this time of day. Not a lost first year, too tall for that- she pushed the hood of her robe down, glanced about her, and sniffed loudly.
It was Hermione Granger.
Draco smirked. There it was, again; a glowing cord. Something that meant something. Would always mean something. A predictable riddle, that he could keep on grasping at forever and would never shy away.
"A-minus, Granger?" he asked. She stopped short, and turned.
"What?"
"You were in the abandoned bathroom, which I can only assume means you were crying-" she stiffened. He'd been right. "And the only thing that could ever make you cry would be a poor grade on some coursework. Or Potter."
Her eyes darkened, and he thought she'd engage him, but her shoulders sunk and she sighed deeply instead. "What do you know, anyway."
"I know you're-"
"You don't know me. You don't know anything at all about me," she said, voice dangerously low, petulant and condescending all at once. It was a manner she'd mastered.
"For God's sake, Granger. What could there possibly be to know?"
She reeled as if he'd slapped her, eyes growing horribly wide. For a moment, it seemed as if the world had stopped; he felt something hot drop into the pit of his stomach.
She burst into tears.
"How could you- how could you-" she sniffed, voice thick and fast and too high to be meant to be under her breath. Draco froze. He'd seen girls crying; his mother, Pansy, some first years, his last girlfriend... but in some curious way, it'd had nothing to do with him, though he caused it more often than not. Perhaps it was that the emotion was a sensible reaction to something clear. This- well, even the most rational part of his mind couldn't touch it. They'd been through this and through it a thousand times. Why cry now?
"Granger- now, really, don't-"
"Don't what? Don't cry? I've got every bloody right to cry, Malfoy, and seeing how you're the one who made me do it again today I'd love to see you try and make me stop-" the tears were coming of their own accord now; she sounded more angry than sad, or more frustrated than angry. She sounded hopeless, but there she was, still finding something in her somewhere to scold him like a first year. It a little inspiring.
It stretched out, her sniffling and gasping great lungfuls of air and him standing there awkwardly at the other end of the hall.
He went for it.
"Er- what's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" she asked, looking up at him with red, incredulous eyes. At least she'd stopped crying for a moment; a small victory.
"Yes, you know. It can't be anything I've done-"
"Oh can't it?"
"No, it can't. I've done far worse things, and not a one has fazed you in the slightest. I can't believe some offhanded comment- not nearly my best, might I add- would set you off into a fit."
She sniffed, and harrumphed, and wiped the tears away from her cheeks. It seemed like forever until she replied, but she did, and he marveled at her even tone.
"You're right. I'm being perfectly ridiculous. The stupid things you say to make yourself feel worthy are hardly anything to put stock in."
He stayed silent at that, unsure how to react. Agreeing seemed false, though he did. He was rather sure that she'd forgotten he was there entirely, until she looked at him piercingly with eyes that were well back to normal.
"What are you doing in the castle at this hour, anyway?" she asked.
"Keeping away from everyone." Same as you.
Something changed in those eyes. He refused to believe it way pity.
"We'll be swamped in a few minutes. It's nearly lunchtime," he shifted uncomfortably, but she didn't break her gaze. He cleared his throat, and mumbled
"Lawn, then?"
"Lawn," she agreed, and followed him out.
-----------
"You never answered my question," he said, as they started down the path to the lake. She looked at him sharply, and he resisted the urge to apologize.
"It's not really... anything," she said finally. He looked ahead.
"But something's wrong."
"Don't be absurd, Malfoy. Everything's wrong."
"Like?"
"It's the warmest Saturday of the spring so far and I'm here with you, for starters," she said, more cuttingly than she'd meant to. He twisted his lips into a dry smile.
"Charming."
"I'm serious. I can hardly stand to be around anyone anymore- everything they say is just so damned empty. It's just that- this is the last time I'll likely ever see any of these people again. People who call themselves my friends, my- family. I fought with them. I fought for them. Couldn't we just talk about something meaningful for once?"
He turned to look at her this time. She was lost in thought.
He couldn't help the smile.
-------
Her tears had dried in the sunlight, leaving thin white tracks down Hermione's cheeks. She didn't seem at all to notice; her eyes were closed, and her mouth was parted, and her hair was spread out all about her face, and, for the first time, Draco realized that from this point of view she was actually quite pretty. It was no blinding epiphany, though it felt odd, rolling around there in his brain; Hermione Granger was a clever girl who was pretty and didn't really irritate him in the slightest. Everything she said meant something.
Five hours out in the grass, lying about and talking sometimes and staring up at the clouds for the rest. It felt comfortable to lie on plain earth; God forbid his mother should ever find out about it, but he enjoyed the feeling. Like you were part of something. Something far bigger and more eternal than you'd ever become, but beautifully so.
Hogwarts was enough like that. For him, it was the class portraits on the wall of the Slytherin common room, and the trophies that lined the mantelpiece. Small reminders that he was only another one of many. He needed that, sometimes.
And it helped, a little, that the world didn't end when he sat outside for a quiet afternoon with a Muggle from Gryffindor who was ignoring him completely.
----------
Hermione Granger was lying on the grassy hill above the lake, barefoot in the spring sun with Draco Malfoy, and his hand had inched his way over ever-so-slowly to hers. They weren't quite touching yet; just lying side by side, steady. She wasn't quite sure what was happening... in fact, she was hardly sure what this was at all. She tried hard not to think about it. She opened an eye to look and she caught him looking at her and he reached out and took her hand and pushed up and pressed his lips to hers, all of a sudden.
It was a little bit and not at all miraculous.
He pulled back, took a deep breath, and caught her eye for the first time in what seemed like ages. She was beaming back- she couldn't help herself- and he swept in for another kiss, heartened, and happy, and desperately glad to be feeling enthusiasm for something for once. Something so simple, even, as a kiss with a girl whose company he enjoyed; one who wouldn't cry when he waved goodbye from the floo fireplace in the common room, or pester him for his Quidditch gear when he'd cast it off or show up at his house over the summer with a gift for his mother and a saccharine smile for his father. Just the thought of Hermione Granger at the manor made him smile; he smiled into her lips, and she smiled back, and he pushed her down onto the grass and didn't think of anything remotely unpleasant or important for a good long time.
-----------
"The world's still turning," she commented, walking back on the path home. He quirked a small smile.
"It is."
"Funny how that seems odd."
"It isn't at all odd to me," he said, and held out his arm.
She took it, and they walked back into the sun.
End.
Technical Notes: I have no idea if the lake is to the West or East of Hogwarts, so consider that last scene a bit of artistic license. Also had the hardest time not incorporating the word “Revelations” into the title, but it just sounded trite.
Reviewing: Concrit is my friend! Oh, yes, it is the precious. Though no one really needs to be told this, just take note that my sentence structure/usage of semicolons and dashes etc. is a stylistic choice, not bad grammar. Or not much of it.
Point of Random Interest: I've lived at boarding school myself for the last four years, and will be graduating from said boarding school in, oh... roughly five days. It's hell on the psyche. It's kind of like moving away from home, except imagine if instead of home being your house and family and car and stuff, home was the entire freaking planet. I poured a lot of my own troubled emotions and unfulfilled expectations into Draco and Hermione, which may or may not have worked. I've love to know. To be perfectly honest, I kind of let the mood write the plot, which is not always the best idea. At this point, I'm not even sure if it's remotely feasible or makes any real sense, but I figure it's Draco/Hermione and would rarely make sense in canon as it is. Hopefully no one minds too terribly. Feel free to leave a scathing review, only beware my fragile heart.
Name/Pen Name: Em
LJ Username: akathesia
E-mail: girl@akathesia.org
Are you over 18: Yes
Rating(s) you’re willing to write: Anything (including NC-17)
Rating(s) of the fic you want: Anything (including NC-17)
One tone/mood you want your gift to include: Melancholia
One element/theme/item you want your gift to include: Time...in any form
One common clichÈ you don't want your gift to include: redeemed or SuperNice!Draco
Thank you for participating in the Spring Forward Exchange!
Title: Revolutions
Author: lepetitarsenic
Rating: PG? No sex!
Summary: "The world's still turning," she commented, walking back on the path home. He quirked a small smile. "It is."
Beta: None! I am a bad person who does not use betas, mostly because I am awful about responding in a timely manner/don't really know anyone in-fandom. I'm really sorry, I know it was a requirement.
Written for: Em/akathesia. Em, I hope the "time" theme came through, and I dearly hope you like this!
It was too bright.
Draco turned his face away from the sunlight streaming into the common room, sore muscles coming to life at the movement. He feel asleep most nights in front of the fireplace; it was better than going back to the dorms and facing all the empty blathering on from his roommates. After and later and next year... next month. A few weeks and it'd be over. My father's arranged it and my mother's got a friend at and all those stupid things that didn't matter anywhere but in a Slytherin dormitory room and were very soon to become obsolete.
He had all of those things too, of course; he had the most and best of them. But it wasn't much of anything to be proud of.
He blinked the hot light out of his eyes, only really half aware. His skin was warm where the sun had touched it. Draco had always been slow to wake, particularly when there was no real point in getting up; there was nothing left to do but wait, now. Getting dressed was a singular pleasure, and the stream of cold water washing human grime away was one of the few things he still trusted himself to feel fully. He'd been a morning person, once; it wasn't that he was avoiding.
He took his meals upstairs in the dormitory room, at times when everyone else was sure to be in the Hall. Sometimes he flipped through his textbooks, and sometimes he stared out the window; sometimes, he lay out on his bed in the sunlight that filtered through, as if he could take it into himself and it would warm him. He never spent time in the common room, except for late nights and early mornings, blessedly alone. Quidditch season was over, and social events were easy enough to beg off.
He was doing everything in his power to avoid human contact here, at the end; he simply had no patience for it anymore. The futility of it hit him full-on every morning. What did any of it matter? Nothing he said mattered; it mattered so much to Pansy, and Crabbe, and Goyle, and all of them, but it didn't matter a whit to him. He had nothing left to learn. No one left to learn things from. There was only one last corner that remained gloriously unexplored... one last tie unsevered.
When he thought back on the sheer amount of time he'd spent, plotting and whispering in corridors and breaking into the potions storage room, it boggled the mind. What had he found so important? He couldn't well imagine it now. Caring that much about something- anything- was a capacity he was sure had gone way of his father and the Dark Lord; vague memories of voices, and troublesome emotions, never to venture again past dream.
But still. Slick potions slipped in front of Potter on the way back from Transfiguration, a jab or two at Weasley's back in the dungeons, and Granger- well, Granger was a bit tougher to crack. She'd turn around and roll her eyes and sigh
"Honestly, Malfoy, will you never grow up?"
and he didn't know what she meant by that, exactly, because he hardly felt grown most times. He was well-dressed and well-spoken and well-educated and as well-prepared and equipped for leaving school as he could imagine anyone had ever been, but growing... he was much the same, and honestly, so was she.
But they weren't. Not quite. They were still the same at the core, Potter still the hero and Weasley still the squire and Granger still a brain with legs, and he was still himself and so was Pansy still Pansy and Crabbe and Goyle- but they were becoming obsolete, too. No one would remember the well-timed parchment he'd slipped to Potter during their potions final, or that Fleur Delacour had been his date to the seventh year ball, or Pansy's fit of jealous rage; a good eye for trouble wouldn't matter anymore, nor would a good nose for dungbombs, or a good sense of when Weasley was sneaking up on you, which wasn't particularly hard to come by anyway. Everything he'd known and everything he'd become and everything he'd conquered was slipping away.
And God, was he tired. He was tired of sitting at the same exact dining hall table in the same exact seats. Tired of Crabbe and Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode, tired of Pansy fawning all over him as if he were something special, tired of never quite being comfortable around Theodore Nott and never quite warming up to Blaise Zabini. He was tired of it all, everything he knew so damn well and had never properly finished and it was all coming to a swift, final end. So why did he feel so bloody miserable?
Draco groaned, struggling amongst the tangle of pillows into a sitting position. There is was.
It was all so damnably simple. Maybe this happens to all of us when we graduate, he thought, tired eyes peering up at the line of snoring Slytherin class portraits on the wall. There was his father's, and just a bit further down, Professor Snape's. Maybe even Professor Snape had felt it. Maybe Professor Snape had turned dour- hard to imagine- and withdrawn from his school chums, if he even had any. Maybe he'd taken to reading all afternoon in the Seventh Year's dormitories, and sneaking out to the Owlery at night. Maybe he'd hated all his housemates and hated all his teachers and started having fond, nostalgic feelings for- God- Potter's father, or Sirius Black.
It didn't seem likely.
But the thought made him feel better.
------
It was never going to happen, she decided. It had been seven years already, and if they didn't know her by now- didn't recognize her by now- they'd never know her, or recognize her, or consider her a human being.
It wasn't much, what she was asking. Just an arm slung around a shoulder or an elbow in the ribs or an off-color joke. Ron and Harry- yes, Ron and Harry bestowed those precious gifts daily, each morning over breakfast, every late night curled up in the common room. But everyone else she knew- or thought she knew- treated her like a doll, or a teacher, like she might snap or snap at them if they played too roughly. Or spoke too honestly. Or invited her home for summer hols, God forbid.
When would they grow up? They weren't fourteen anymore, all caught up in who their parents were or what colors were on the stripes of their ties. Harry had turned out a hero, yes, and Ron had turned out to be an excellent Quidditch player, true to blood, and Ginny was more than enough for Harry after all he'd been through and she- well? She was the most brilliant Muggle to ever come out of Hogwarts, and she'd never be anything more. Not to Seamus Finnegan or Lavender or Parvati or all those other people she knew or knew her. Or thought they knew her.
She was so much more simple and infinitely more complex than anyone gave her credit for, and she was damnably tired of working around their ignorance. They'd press a butterbeer into her hands at parties and shift awkwardly for a moment and ask about their Arithmancy homework and catch some other friend passing by out of the corner of their eye and go. It wasn't that she didn't have anything to say to them; God knew she had plenty to say. But she wanted to talk about the things that mattered, things like death and religion and quantum physics and the Goblin rebellion of 1412. It was interesting; it was fascinating. But they were all so caught up in kissing and fighting and doing useless things that didn't matter to anyone or anything that they couldn't stop to listen.
It hurt. God, it hurt that she couldn't do those things, that they wouldn't- let her. Furiously, she wiped a hot tear out of her eye, staring up at the arched stone ceiling of the abandoned girl's bathroom. How long could this go on? Two weeks, of course, but then- a different bathroom, a different badge on the front of her robe and a different set of expectations, unfulfilled and grating and burning in the pit of her stomach.
She sniffed and stood, pushing the broken door open with one hand and stepping out of the stall. Myrtle was gone; no one knew where. She had said that she and Hermione weren't so very different, once. Hermione had never known how much.
She shook her head, righting her Head Girl's badge on her robes and rubbing the redness out of her eyes as best she could. There was no point in dwelling on it anymore. Couldn't she just live these last two weeks for whatever they were worth? But Hermione wasn't the sort of girl to not consider things. It would go against her very nature.
That was it. She wasn't being melancholy, just- coming to terms with the knowledge she'd gleaned about her place in the world. It was only a matter of rationally accepting a logical truth. She'd never belonged here. Or anywhere else. And she'd never belong anywhere but in between Ron and Harry.
But they couldn't stay with her forever.
She walked out into the corridor and tried hard not to think about it.
-------
Draco did up the last buttons on his oxford, then deftly straightened the creases out of the thin cotton as he studied himself in the mirror. It didn't really matter, he supposed. It wasn't like anyone would see. But he liked to feel presentable; presentable was presentable, no matter where you were.
He slipped his school robe over his shoulders, fastened it shut, and started up the stairs toward the common room. Perhaps he'd manage to get some work done; everyone else was outside, he imagined, on the pitch or in the woods or down at Hogsmeade. No reason to stick around on a Saturday morning; by the time you were a seventh year, there was nothing around to hold your attention.
The transfiguration classroom was his best bet. McGonagall never locked it (and who would have the gall to take anything from her?), and even he had been having some trouble with her advanced lessons. It wasn't for lack of skill, he just couldn't- couldn't muster up any energy for the subject, that one or any other. It all seemed so futile.
He turned a corner on the second floor, right by old Myrtle's bathroom, and was surprised to see another body in the corridors at this time of day. Not a lost first year, too tall for that- she pushed the hood of her robe down, glanced about her, and sniffed loudly.
It was Hermione Granger.
Draco smirked. There it was, again; a glowing cord. Something that meant something. Would always mean something. A predictable riddle, that he could keep on grasping at forever and would never shy away.
"A-minus, Granger?" he asked. She stopped short, and turned.
"What?"
"You were in the abandoned bathroom, which I can only assume means you were crying-" she stiffened. He'd been right. "And the only thing that could ever make you cry would be a poor grade on some coursework. Or Potter."
Her eyes darkened, and he thought she'd engage him, but her shoulders sunk and she sighed deeply instead. "What do you know, anyway."
"I know you're-"
"You don't know me. You don't know anything at all about me," she said, voice dangerously low, petulant and condescending all at once. It was a manner she'd mastered.
"For God's sake, Granger. What could there possibly be to know?"
She reeled as if he'd slapped her, eyes growing horribly wide. For a moment, it seemed as if the world had stopped; he felt something hot drop into the pit of his stomach.
She burst into tears.
"How could you- how could you-" she sniffed, voice thick and fast and too high to be meant to be under her breath. Draco froze. He'd seen girls crying; his mother, Pansy, some first years, his last girlfriend... but in some curious way, it'd had nothing to do with him, though he caused it more often than not. Perhaps it was that the emotion was a sensible reaction to something clear. This- well, even the most rational part of his mind couldn't touch it. They'd been through this and through it a thousand times. Why cry now?
"Granger- now, really, don't-"
"Don't what? Don't cry? I've got every bloody right to cry, Malfoy, and seeing how you're the one who made me do it again today I'd love to see you try and make me stop-" the tears were coming of their own accord now; she sounded more angry than sad, or more frustrated than angry. She sounded hopeless, but there she was, still finding something in her somewhere to scold him like a first year. It a little inspiring.
It stretched out, her sniffling and gasping great lungfuls of air and him standing there awkwardly at the other end of the hall.
He went for it.
"Er- what's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" she asked, looking up at him with red, incredulous eyes. At least she'd stopped crying for a moment; a small victory.
"Yes, you know. It can't be anything I've done-"
"Oh can't it?"
"No, it can't. I've done far worse things, and not a one has fazed you in the slightest. I can't believe some offhanded comment- not nearly my best, might I add- would set you off into a fit."
She sniffed, and harrumphed, and wiped the tears away from her cheeks. It seemed like forever until she replied, but she did, and he marveled at her even tone.
"You're right. I'm being perfectly ridiculous. The stupid things you say to make yourself feel worthy are hardly anything to put stock in."
He stayed silent at that, unsure how to react. Agreeing seemed false, though he did. He was rather sure that she'd forgotten he was there entirely, until she looked at him piercingly with eyes that were well back to normal.
"What are you doing in the castle at this hour, anyway?" she asked.
"Keeping away from everyone." Same as you.
Something changed in those eyes. He refused to believe it way pity.
"We'll be swamped in a few minutes. It's nearly lunchtime," he shifted uncomfortably, but she didn't break her gaze. He cleared his throat, and mumbled
"Lawn, then?"
"Lawn," she agreed, and followed him out.
-----------
"You never answered my question," he said, as they started down the path to the lake. She looked at him sharply, and he resisted the urge to apologize.
"It's not really... anything," she said finally. He looked ahead.
"But something's wrong."
"Don't be absurd, Malfoy. Everything's wrong."
"Like?"
"It's the warmest Saturday of the spring so far and I'm here with you, for starters," she said, more cuttingly than she'd meant to. He twisted his lips into a dry smile.
"Charming."
"I'm serious. I can hardly stand to be around anyone anymore- everything they say is just so damned empty. It's just that- this is the last time I'll likely ever see any of these people again. People who call themselves my friends, my- family. I fought with them. I fought for them. Couldn't we just talk about something meaningful for once?"
He turned to look at her this time. She was lost in thought.
He couldn't help the smile.
-------
Her tears had dried in the sunlight, leaving thin white tracks down Hermione's cheeks. She didn't seem at all to notice; her eyes were closed, and her mouth was parted, and her hair was spread out all about her face, and, for the first time, Draco realized that from this point of view she was actually quite pretty. It was no blinding epiphany, though it felt odd, rolling around there in his brain; Hermione Granger was a clever girl who was pretty and didn't really irritate him in the slightest. Everything she said meant something.
Five hours out in the grass, lying about and talking sometimes and staring up at the clouds for the rest. It felt comfortable to lie on plain earth; God forbid his mother should ever find out about it, but he enjoyed the feeling. Like you were part of something. Something far bigger and more eternal than you'd ever become, but beautifully so.
Hogwarts was enough like that. For him, it was the class portraits on the wall of the Slytherin common room, and the trophies that lined the mantelpiece. Small reminders that he was only another one of many. He needed that, sometimes.
And it helped, a little, that the world didn't end when he sat outside for a quiet afternoon with a Muggle from Gryffindor who was ignoring him completely.
----------
Hermione Granger was lying on the grassy hill above the lake, barefoot in the spring sun with Draco Malfoy, and his hand had inched his way over ever-so-slowly to hers. They weren't quite touching yet; just lying side by side, steady. She wasn't quite sure what was happening... in fact, she was hardly sure what this was at all. She tried hard not to think about it. She opened an eye to look and she caught him looking at her and he reached out and took her hand and pushed up and pressed his lips to hers, all of a sudden.
It was a little bit and not at all miraculous.
He pulled back, took a deep breath, and caught her eye for the first time in what seemed like ages. She was beaming back- she couldn't help herself- and he swept in for another kiss, heartened, and happy, and desperately glad to be feeling enthusiasm for something for once. Something so simple, even, as a kiss with a girl whose company he enjoyed; one who wouldn't cry when he waved goodbye from the floo fireplace in the common room, or pester him for his Quidditch gear when he'd cast it off or show up at his house over the summer with a gift for his mother and a saccharine smile for his father. Just the thought of Hermione Granger at the manor made him smile; he smiled into her lips, and she smiled back, and he pushed her down onto the grass and didn't think of anything remotely unpleasant or important for a good long time.
-----------
"The world's still turning," she commented, walking back on the path home. He quirked a small smile.
"It is."
"Funny how that seems odd."
"It isn't at all odd to me," he said, and held out his arm.
She took it, and they walked back into the sun.
End.
Technical Notes: I have no idea if the lake is to the West or East of Hogwarts, so consider that last scene a bit of artistic license. Also had the hardest time not incorporating the word “Revelations” into the title, but it just sounded trite.
Reviewing: Concrit is my friend! Oh, yes, it is the precious. Though no one really needs to be told this, just take note that my sentence structure/usage of semicolons and dashes etc. is a stylistic choice, not bad grammar. Or not much of it.
Point of Random Interest: I've lived at boarding school myself for the last four years, and will be graduating from said boarding school in, oh... roughly five days. It's hell on the psyche. It's kind of like moving away from home, except imagine if instead of home being your house and family and car and stuff, home was the entire freaking planet. I poured a lot of my own troubled emotions and unfulfilled expectations into Draco and Hermione, which may or may not have worked. I've love to know. To be perfectly honest, I kind of let the mood write the plot, which is not always the best idea. At this point, I'm not even sure if it's remotely feasible or makes any real sense, but I figure it's Draco/Hermione and would rarely make sense in canon as it is. Hopefully no one minds too terribly. Feel free to leave a scathing review, only beware my fragile heart.
Name/Pen Name: Em
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