A Reason update
Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Never A Reason
Author: Hafthand
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Rating: PG
Summary: Hermione looks back on a night not long ago and sees someone she never thought she would see again.
A/N: Okay so thank you so much everyone who reviewed so quickly to my first Harry Potter fic! I have caved and written a sequel, and am also writing at least one more part after. Thank you all so much for your kind words!!!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I saw him once, not long after Hogwarts. I don’t think he saw me, and if he did, he made no indication that he had. I was in London, and had chosen to take the Muggle way home from the ministry, the subway. I was in a hurry to get home to the warmth of my flat after a busy winter day, and rushed onto the underground just as the doors were closing. As usual at this hour, there was the rush hour press, so abandoning any hope of finding a seat in what Harry would fondly call a mosh-pit, I steadied myself against the pole by the door, fishing out my book from my bag.
I settled myself in for a forty-five minute journey that Ron is constantly complaining about. He doesn’t understand why I would bother wasting forty-five minutes standing in a human sardine tin instead of apparating. I have tried explaining to him, that at least once a week I try and take the subway or my ancient car to remind myself that I may be a witch, but I was once a Muggle. His response: “You’re mental.”
Harry gets it a little, I think. He never brings it up, but I think he understands the need to escape the pressures of the magical world for even just an hour. Things can be so hectic these days, that sometimes I feel the need to breathe and can’t. Harry gets that, he always has. Ron has never known anything but the magical world, but I think, when it gets really rough, he envies Harry and I our past in the Muggle world.
I let out a sigh as I push the stray thoughts from my mind and try to concentrate on the pages of the worn book before me. I am having little success as the rocking of the train, the heat of the carriage, and the muttering of the passengers send me into a kind of daze. I lower the book and allow my gaze to travel across the other passengers, not really taking in the details. The train begins to slow as we approach the next stop and a few passengers get up and try to push their way through the crowd to the doors.
It is then, when I am forced to venture further into the carriage, that I see the shock of white-blonde hair that sends my thoughts reeling back to a night not quite two years ago. A night I think about too often these days. A night that sends odd shivers down my spine. I remember his eyes, staring deeply into mine; his hand slowly reaching for mine; his eyes almost begging me to take his hand. I remember too well the words he spoke to me with no explanation whatsoever.
I shake myself from these thoughts and try to get a better view of the face that belongs to that hair. Parts of me are hoping it is him, but why? Surely, Draco Malfoy, purest of the purebloods would never be sitting on a Muggle underground in the heart of London?! But then again, Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince extrordinaire, would never have said what he had to me that night. I have learned, these past few years, that the world is full of surprises. Events you could never hope for, come barreling around the corner, colliding with your world. That is how I feel now as an old woman in a over-the-top red hat shifts over to make room for a young woman and her child. It is then that Draco Malfoy’s face becomes visible.
My breath goes slightly ragged, but I push this off to the heat of the carriage. I allow my eyes to drink him in. His hair hangs limply below his ears, falling beautifully over his eyes. The same grey eyes I caught staring at me so often. He was dressed as a muggle in what I could only assume were expensive designer clothes. Black designer clothes of course. He sat reading an old hardcover book with what seemed great intensity. I had to admit, he looked good. Very good. But he also looked very lost. As lost as he had that day, so many months ago when he came over to me on his last night in Hogwarts.
I still have no idea what had possessed him to say such things to me, or why Remus treated him with such pained respect. I still have no idea what I was a reason for, or what he even meant by that. Harry and Ron had interragated Remus all night about the handshake, but Remus simply shook his head and looked at me with even sadder eyes then he normally carried. Surprisingly Mrs. Weasley had a tear running down her face as she watched Malfoy walk from the hall. She had turned to Ron when he had began to insult Malfoy and said, “Don’t you dare. Do you hear me Ronald Weasley? Don’t you dare. You don’t know... you have no idea...” her eyes traveling to gaze at me sadly.
But Mr. Weasley had then put a comforting arm around his wife and they had gone off to find Ginny. “Well, I would if you would have told me something,” Ron muttered once she was out of earshot.
I had started getting tired of everyone looking at me that way, so I approached Remus, when Harry and Ron had run off to find Neville. “Professor Lupin,” I had muttered, not wanting to intrude on his silence.
He looked up at me slowly and smiled. “Too many people have lost so much in this war Hermione, too many. And it isn’t over yet.” His eyes focused on me for the first time and the smile fell from his face. “Don’t you throw your life away, don’t you dare. It’s too precious now.” And with that he downed his drink and went to find solace elsewhere leaving me even more confused.
Seeing him now, sitting quietly reading as though back in the library at Hogwarts, I find all my old memories and questions flood back with such an intensity that I begin to get angry. Angry because this stranger has held such power over my life, and I don’t know why. My anger is cut short as the train begins its approach to the next station. More people push their way to the doors and I have a perfectly unobstructed view of the mystery that is Draco Malfoy.
I consider for a moment what I am going to say to him after all this time, or even if I should say anything at all. He had disappeared from our world that night at Hogwarts. No one had seen him since. Every time Ron would suggest that Malfoy had become a Death-Eater and was in hiding, Mrs. Weasley, or even Remus, would quickly silence him. They would never explain why. They would just get a pitying look in their eyes, glance quickly at me, then change subject.
No, I decide, I will say something to him. There have been to many glances shot my way and I want an explanation. The train stops and expels its passengers, as I gather up the courage to approach this ghost from my past. I silently laugh at myself. I have faced death countless times, yet talking to Draco Malfoy puts butterflies in my stomache. Just then the train picks up speed again and Malfoy looks up. I hold my breath, half of me willing him to look my way, the other half praying he won’t. Instead he gets up from his seat, which is quickly taken by a pretty brunette in a skirt and high heels, who seems to find Malfoy’s ass very attractive.
He is unaware though. His haunting eyes don’t come my way, they seek the exit closest to him and he pushes his way towards it. I leave my reasons behind and fight my way to his end of the carriage. The train is slowing in its approach to the next stop and I try to move faster towards him wondering as I do what I could possibly say to him. An elderly man glances grumpily at me as I apologize for treading over his foot, but I continue onwards. As I draw nearer, the train stops. I push my way faster the last few feet and finally reach the doors just as they open.
He steps out and before I can think I shout his name, "Draco!”
He pauses then and I wait for him to turn my way. But it soon becomes apparent that he has not heard me. He has paused while he searches his pockets for some unknown object, which upon finding resumes his journey out of the tunnel and up to the world above.
I lean against the now shut doors and watch as his lonely figure slowly fades from my view. I sigh in frustration and loss. Now I will never have a reason, no reason at all. No reason for past events. I retrieve my forgotten book from my bag and wait for my journey home to end.
I saw him once, not long after Hogwarts. But I don’t think he saw me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I wrote the sequel, due to a few reviews asking for one, and well since I am so easy to convince, I decided to go from Hermione’s point of view. I will also be adding at least one more part, from Draco’s point of view so keep looking if I have succeeded in peeking your interest!! Ciao for now!
Love, Ally
‘In the end Captain, we all stand alone.”