QR / Chapter 16 - Brand New Sight
Title: Quiet Revolution / Chapter 16 - Brand New Sight
Author: street scribbles
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Hermione's date with Blaise finally happens. Some more stuff happens. And then . . . even more stuff happens. Do you guys still read my summaries? :P
A/N: This chapter couldn't have happened without you, burger face. :) And you know that. I know that. So accept my gratitude and don't be shameless and ask for an appreciation gift in return!
Oh, and for Jenny. Chin up, darling. I'm here for you always. Hopefully this is some kind of fucked up consolation. <3
And then it's for all the people who have constantly reminded me that they've read this story, will read it when I update, and will continue reading it - time and time again, I can't be anymore grateful. I suck for the lateness.
I hope this was worth the wait.
Link:
Chapter 16 - Brand New Sight
Tears stream down your face
I promise you, I will learn from my mistakes
Lights will guide you home. . .
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Coldplay - Fix You
“Hermione, ugh, that flower is dying and it smells really bad.”
Hermione shot Lavender a look as she added a barrette to her hair, pulling a thick portion of it back so that her face was more easily seen. Lavender placed her hands on her hips and stared at Hermione’s reflection in the mirror.
“You’re in a good mood today. Oh wow, Hermione! And your hair is not. . . how it is normally,” Lavender said politely right before her pretty blue eyes grew large. “Ooh! Is Zabini taking you out tonight?”
Hermione smiled faintly at Lavender’s reflection in the mirror and nodded.
Lavender squealed like a runt pig, and Hermione felt like a normal school girl, living a normal life. Today, for the first time in a long time, her plans did not involve trailing along an almost dead person, cracking an illegal, possibly Dark, ancient Egyptian spell. For the first time in a long time - her plans did not involve Draco, and it was very different. But she felt good at this very moment and found that she didn’t even mind that Lavender had brought up her flower that Harry and Ron had given to her last year.
“You have to tell me all about it! Will you let him kiss you? Have you practiced? Doing it in front of the mirror is a good trick. Hermione this is so exciting! Your first kiss! Wait, you’re planning to let him kiss you, right? I know some really prudish people who wait until marriage, even! Is that not ridiculous?” Lavender snorted. “Hermione! You’re going to be kissed tonight!”
Hermione’s face turned crimson and Lavender squealed again when there was a knock on the door.
“Of course,” Lavender continued. “I myself obviously didn’t wait until marriage . . .”
Lavender was being irritatingly reminiscent of stepping into a shower to be rudely surprised with the ice cold stream of water. But what can you do? You’re completely naked and you need to shower. So you frantically turn the nozzle over to the hottest it’ll go.
And the water still remains annoyingly cold.
But what can you do? Wait it out.
“Hermione!” It was Sarah Treder, a Second Year, “There’s a boy waiting for you in front.”
“Tell him I’ll be down in a second!” Hermione called.
“Oh, he also wants you to turn around.”
“What?” Hermione said, feeling dismayed, as she turned around back into her reflection in the mirror, where she stared. Right next to Ron and Harry’s decaying flower there was a vase with a single red glowing flower forming from thin air on her desk,
“A romantic Slytherin,” Hermione commented, smiling at the sight of the transfigured flower and gave her hair one last stroke of comb before she patted her skirt down and got up, grabbing her bag.
“Have a nice time!” Parvati called, as she came out of her shower, just entering the room and passing by Hermione. Her long black hair was still wet and was leaving damp splotches on the carpet and Lavender was exclaiming at how long she had waited for the bathroom to clear up in a voice that indicated the necessity for an apology.
“Thanks,” Hermione said over her shoulder.
“What a pretty flower!” Lavender said loudly.
Hermione had not turned around to stare at the flower Zabini had given her. Instead, she merely paused and stood there, almost in mid step. And as she slowly sunk her other foot into the carpet, she stepped out of the scene and observed: Parvati was on her bed, drying her hair with a towel watching along with Hermione as Lavender continued to ramble on - the bright pink color of her jump suit contrasting harshly with the dead, off color of Harry and Ron’s flower that she was standing close by to.
It was the only flower Hermione could see and then she quickly shook her head to herself and inhaled slowly, letting the moment seep back into her conscious.
“Lavender? You do realize that the shower is free now, don’t you?”
Hopefully Parvati had taken up all the hot water.
“I’ve never seen a red this bright before,” Lavender continued, not reacting from Hermione’s bite. “Hermione, do you want me to throw out the other flower?”
She was in a rush and she was exhilarated and excited and almost ecstatic for her date with Blaise. But even amongst that, she knew what was most important to her. And so she paused to speak clearly before she closed the door on her dormitory.
“No.”
* * *
By the end of the night, after a pleasant dinner at an old Italian café that had opened up in Hogsmeade - more popular with the older crowd and a lingering browse through the new bookstore that had opened, Hermione had thought about Harry twice, Ron three times, and Draco once.
And just to clarify, these numbers are considered low. It was the fact that Blaise Zabini came from a well off family. Not well off in the Malfoy sense where their monetary worth was written with their clothing and their material possessions (or simply with their words, verbatim of course - Malfoys didn’t really enjoy the art of subtlety, you see). But Blaise was well off in the sense that he knew how to walk in a way that made heads turn, he spoke his words in a subtle, quiet manner that made girls edge closer, afraid of asking him to repeat and desperately wanting to know what he meant, hoping they’d at least hear his next trail of intellectual thought.
Luckily, Hermione Granger wasn’t any girl. She was smarter than that. And she found that she and Blaise Zabini got along very, very pleasantly. If she weren’t having such a good time, she would have focused obsessively on the details of Blaise being a Slytherin, Blaise was on the Dark side, Blaise was, no, Blaise is a Pureblood.
She could almost have been suspicious. Almost. Just almost.
But right now, the two had been walking in silence and Hermione wondered when he was finally going to kiss her. The night was chilled and the air was crisp as it fluttered through the many layers of her hair.
“Can I ask you something?” Hermione asked softly, interrupting the silence.
She liked to do that a lot, Blaise thought, before smiling a bit and turned to look at her.
“Why did you ask me out?” Despite both their almost successful attempts at being more mature than the status quo at Hogwarts, the date was still awkward. It had just suddenly become awkward after Hermione asked such a question.
Hermione had just suddenly felt more awkward than ever and remembered this was merely her third date, ever in her lifetime, and she had no idea what she was doing.
He turned to look at her and they both stopped. She felt her heart pounding as he faced her slowly and smiled a bit.
And it was strange, because she had wanted to be kissed by him so bad throughout the night. It was this incurable itch that seemed to bother her. She wanted to know that he not only liked her enough to seek her out and ask her out, but that he liked her enough to want to kiss her. As the time weaved slowly through the night, she simply wanted to feel more like a normal school girl.
Yes, it was strange. Because she did really want to kiss him, but as the handsome boy leaned down, closing his eyes, Hermione reeled back two steps and saw that he had his hands in his pocket as this was Blaise’s trademark style of kissing, but Hermione not knowing this only frantically concluded that he was reaching for something.
“Don’t come any closer! . . . Expelliarmus!” she cried, her voice shrill as she whipped out her wand. And everything that occurred after that played out in slow motion as Blaise’s eyes snapped wide open as his body was propelled up and then shot straight down as he fell down onto the grounds.
Hermione cursed under her breath and rushed forward, fretting to herself in panic.
“Why am I so stupid?” she cried out, “Blaise. . . Blaise. . . oh no,” she trailed off and stopped to wipe away the stray tears with the pulled sleeve her sweater.
“Wake up, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . . ”
“You’re never going to trust anyone, are you?” It was a male voice and Hermione looked around, eyes alert and hands clenched around her wand.
“Move aside,” a low voice growled and she cried out in soft spoken surprise as she turned and saw Draco. He didn’t meet eyes with her as he moved past her and down onto his knees.
“Give me your wand,” he snapped. Still shocked, Hermione wordlessly handed it to him and watched closely as his blond hair fell loosely into his eyes as Draco muttered a counter spell. Blaise twitched slightly and Hermione placed a hand over her heart, sighing with relief.
Draco turned to look at her this time, his eyes meeting hers as he handed her back her wand. He tilted his head, motioning downward toward Blaise’s body.
“This is what you want?” he asked quietly, almost mumbling.
He felt himself fading, and his bones were frail and his blood was weighing him down and he felt like he had gone without food and water for awhile.
He felt like he had gone without life for awhile. And he finally felt drained.
A random image flashed through his head just then, it was of when he was a child. When he was three, Narcissa Malfoy had handed him his Chocolate Frog. Draco spent the rest of the sunny afternoon curled up against his mother’s legs, her long filmy skirt pressed up against his cheek - he had insisted that he didn’t want to nap, and he had spent that warm strip of time pulling off the Frog’s legs and letting them melt a bit in his palm before licking up the rich confectionary smudges off.
The slideshow with no sound stopped then, Draco blinked and all of a sudden the images that lay before his eyes were now bleak and grey. It was night time and the air was dead and haunted down, sitting on his shoulders as he stared at Hermione.
There had been life. There had been death. And now, there was Hermione.
That was his mission. Sabrina had clearly stated. Give Hermione Granger closure from the war, heal her.
Draco could feel it - this was the end of his life. And though Sabrina had said life wasn’t literal, he could very well literally feel his life, what had been left of it anyway, disintegrating within him. He was suddenly so tired.
His mission was over.
She bit her lower lip. “Yes. This is what I want.”
He nodded and she waited patiently for him to respond.
“I’ll be going soon then,” he finally said, his words not intending to come out as a whisper - but doing so naturally anyway. His normal role of being the obligatory smirking smart ass had left and it felt like it had been such a long time. Now, he only felt what needed to be said would come out on its own. “I hope . . . you have a good life, I really do, Granger.”
She wasn’t looking at him. It was interesting, the things they said about Hermione Granger. How she was a prudish girl who had way too much confidence. That’s what was so funny, because Hermione had mastered her confident façade so well over these years that nobody could tell when her truth was gracing. And this was it, Hermione was avoiding eye contact with Draco and she couldn’t bring herself to use any façade right now. She bit her lower lip.
“Thank you for this, Draco.” And she meant it. Her head was spinning and Blaise was one thing while Draco was another, but on top of it all - this was her life and she realized this now. This would be a life without Harry and maybe Blaise would be the start of something new. Maybe Draco was her way of coping with the loss. Maybe Draco was a stepping stone.
He nodded again and turned to see Blaise, struggling to open his eyes. He was conscious again.
Hermione was staring at Draco’s backside intensely, and then she was staring at Blaise, and then she rushed over to Blaise, sinking her knees deep into the cool dirt in the night and looked down at him.
“Blaise. . .”
“Hermione,” he said. “What happened?”
“Draco--” Hermione stopped herself in time. She turned around to look for Draco.
But he was gone.
She looked down at Blaise and felt her heart was so light and swift and its beats were dancing with ease. She had found it -what she needed.
“You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered.
She didn’t even think to wonder where Draco was.
And then she thought the same of herself. She was finally going to be okay.
No more worrying about an illegal spell that would have never played out. No more feeling like every day was going nowhere and that her life was just a huge burden. She didn’t have to walk heavy steps down the corridor every day and return to her shifty, uncomfortable bed at night. There would be no more of wishing Harry would come back, because that had all been so whimsical and hopeful - that was like a child version, Hermione thought, that was yesterday. This was today. Blaise was today. She was today. She was content right now. No more unhappiness.
No more Draco. No more complications. She was finally done with all of that.
Blaise looked up at her and stroked her cheek softly.
“Let’s get you back to your room,” she whispered. He nodded and hoisted himself up and before he got up completely, pulled her up with him and promptly kissed her.
Her eyes widened and her heart stopped. And she wondered if Draco was around.
But then she stopped all of that and kissed back hungrily, pushing him down against the ground and letting him run his hands through her hair.
All along, Hermione could not help wondering why she saw Ron while she was kissing him.
“He’s the enemy! I can’t believe you!” Ron was shouting.
Ron never called Draco the enemy, Hermione recalled as she kissed harder.
* * *
“On the ground?!” Lavender squeaked. “My goodness… Blaise Zabini has a wild side after all. What happened after that?”
“Nothing,” Hermione said tiredly. “Lavender, can we turn off the lights? I’m really tired.”
“Oh, sure. Lumos,” Lavender said and Hermione groaned silently as Lavender’s lit up wand glowed softly in the room. “So . . .” she started in an annoyingly sing-song tone before springing her next question. “Are you guys going on a second date?”
“Maybe,” Hermione mumbled sleepily. And it was after a few more questions and Hermione’s barely audible answers that finally delivered Lavender the hint of going to sleep herself.
It was not long after that Hermione woke up with a jolt. It had been a dreamless sleep, but she woke up very alertly and clung to the side of her bed, as if she had been close to falling off. As she did, she caught sight of Blaise’s glowing red flower and pulled her covers off. The hardwood floors made contact with her feet and it was cold, giving her the waking jolt she needed to pick up the flower and study it carefully.
It was only seconds after putting down Blaise’s flower that Hermione noticed her other flower, the one from Ron and Harry, was nowhere in sight. She frantically grabbed her wand and charmed it and then proceeded to prod it throughout the room. But still nothing.
“Lavender!” Hermione cried out, not caring what ungodly hour of the night it really was.
“Hermione, what’s going on?” Parvati asked sleepily, propping herself up on one elbow and rubbing her eyes. “Gosh, what time is it?”
“Lavender,” Hermione repeated evenly, not only louder than before but also proceeding to turn on all the lights in the dormitory.
Lavender let out a tired mumble before her eyes opened. She looked up and hoisted her body up. “What’s going on?” she asked curiously.
“Where did you put my flower?” Hermione asked, a dangerous edge to her voice, placing her hands on her hips.
Lavender didn’t say anything.
“Where did you put my flower!” Hermione shrieked. Parvati looked at Lavender and Lavender opened her mouth.
She didn’t let Lavender answer as she continued stalking around the room, lungs firing up and eyes welling up with bitter tears. “What’s your problem?” Hermione cried out. “Haven’t I been through enough? Why do you talk to me like I’m a child? I’m not! I’ve been through more than you’ll ever go through and you don’t realize that! So you’ve kissed more boys than I have. Big deal! I’m so happy for you!”
Lavender and Parvati gawked.
“Did you lose your two best friends?” Hermione shouted angrily, her red eyes apparent. “Oh, no wait! Look, Parvati is right there. And surprise surprise, Padma is peacefully still alive in the Ravenclaw house.”
Parvati cried out in a silent protest.
“What did they ever do to you? What did Harry and Ron ever do to you? Does the flower bother you because it smells? Because it’s ugly?”
Hermione burst into tears. “You’re ugly! You don’t know what real friendship is, you don’t know what it means to me. And you took away the one thing that mattered the most to me. The one thing left for me to remember them by.”
“Hermione, I--” Lavender stopped in mid sentence as Hermione’s eyes landed on their wastebasket where she found the flower. She angrily stormed over to it and knelt down, plucking it out amongst the various scraps of paper and an empty bag of almonds.
Hermione could feel hot blood rush to her face and for some reason, all the tension and nerves she had seemed to be lacking today decided to welcome themselves back into her system all in one heavy pile. She hastily wiped the few stray, frustrated tears away from her eyes in one sloppy back-hand motion.
She glared at Lavender as she made a point to storm over to the vase in which Lavender had placed Blaise’s flower and yanked it out, splashing scattered drips of water down on the front of her sleeping shirt, an old shirt of Harry’s ironically, while doing so. She angrily jerked down on her knees and violently tossed Blaise’s radiant red flower into the wastebasket.
“How could you? After I told you not to.” Hermione’s voice was dry and coarse.
“Hermione . . . ” Lavender trailed off, but suddenly seemed wary of questioning anything.
“Oh, please, can we turn off the lights? I have two exams tomorrow! Hermione, get over it. They’re both just flowers and they’ll both end up dying in the end.” Parvati cried out and fell back onto her pillow with a huff. Lavender watched Hermione as she quietly tore off her shirt and bottoms and pulled on her sweater and cloak. She was bent down, and stray tears were falling down.
“You’re wrong,” Hermione whispered before she made her way toward the door.
What have I done? I’ve lost sight of everything that’s important to me, Hermione thought to herself as she stepped into her shoes.
“Where are you going?” Lavender’s voice was dim and lingered in the dormitory corridors only for a second.
“To save someone’s life,” Hermione vowed to herself under her breath as she flung the painting to the Gryffindor Tower open.
“. . . I just don’t know whose,” she finished as she walked hurriedly through the empty night drenched castle.
* * *
When the fresh burst of midnight air welcomed her outside, Hermione found that her legs were going in motion faster than her beating chest. Her heart was racing and she ran, something fueling her to charge faster and recklessly through the grounds. The smooth tracks of cool wind tore through her hair and whipped around her face and she kept running, breathing harshly through her mouth. She didn’t stop running until she reached the sandy shores of the lake.
The lake always reminded her of Draco nowadays. How they spent Christmas morning just chatting with the stretch of the lake keeping them company. How she had told him that she always wanted to be crazy for once and jump into the lake.
She remembered what he had said:
“I think you should be ready, Hermione, because one day when you’re not expecting it, something is going to push you into that lake. And I hope that for your growth’s sake, it’ll be you.”
“Don’t you dare, Draco Malfoy!”
“Oh, I’m not. I can’t force you to do anything. I just hope that you will sooner or later.”
“That is so rash of you. You’re the second most proper person I know alongside me.”
“My family’s proper. I’m still a boy trying to live, that’s all.”
There had been a pause and a slice of silence inserted after that moment, she remembered clearly.
“In any case,” Draco had said smoothly, leaning down so that his back fell against the ground, amongst the crackle and crunch of the dead branches and leaves. “I hope you’re prepared. Because things are going to change without our consent, sadly. So I hope you’d at least jump into a lake for it.”
“What are you going to do for the change, then?” she had snorted.
He didn’t look at her then.
“I died for it. And maybe you’ll learn to jump if I tell you that so did Potter.”
When the unwanted flashback finally disintegrated into the night, she was breathless as her head snapped up and she looked around, studying her settings. It was night again, and Draco was nowhere near her.
But, then, before she even paused to catch her breath, she finally saw Draco and found that there was no breath to retain - she felt like her heart had stopped already. He stood there at the edge of the lake, hands in his pockets, hair gleaming under the white moonlight against the deep blue night, stars littered in the background and it all felt like a surreal dream. He turned around and there was not a trace of surprise etched on his face anywhere, he simply looked at her blankly and watched as she slowly made her way toward him, never tearing her eyes off his.
He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He looked . . . dead.
He was dead. It suddenly broke her heart to realize that Draco Malfoy was dead. And so was Harry. They were both dead. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t - this wasn’t the time to cry.
She had cried too much for Harry. It was simply the time now to do something about it.
She took a step closer and looked down at her feet - her flats were dirty and her feet hurt.
“You know, when Professor McGonagall approached me to make a speech at Harry’s funeral, I dreaded it,” she said softly. “Why, right?” She laughed softly. “He’s one of the best people in my life, why wouldn’t I want to honor that? Why wouldn’t I want everyone else to understand how wonderful Harry was?”
Draco was silent. She kept on talking.
“I was thinking selfishly of myself. For petty, stupid reasons. Merlin, they were so bloody stupid, Draco. I didn’t want to cry in front of a large crowd. I didn’t want to break down in front of my professors. I wanted to keep composure for Harry. And I kept thinking: how selfish is that? How selfish is it on my part to care about how I carried myself in respect to Harry? I would be willing to die for him but I can’t somehow express that? I was so stupid. So stupid.”
Oh, Hermione Granger? She’s the brightest witch in our grade. Maybe even in our school.
Something stupid happened, must have been Weasley or Potter’s fault because you know Granger is really smart.
I wonder if she ever takes a break from herself to fail once in awhile.
He didn’t speak. Draco was sitting close to the bank of the lake and had his knees propped up, wrapped loosely around them. But she knew he was listening, so she sat down closely next to him.
“I just need you to understand that. I would do anything for Ron and Harry. And that’s because they made me strong. They gave me a reason to believe in anything, Draco. You don’t know what Harry’s life was like. I hated it when they called him The Boy Who Lived. He didn’t even get a chance to live properly. He lived the first twelve years of his life confined in a house of cold, forced shelter - there was absolutely no love. And then when there was a chance for him to be surrounded by people he loved at Hogwarts, he had to start living in fear - I know he tried not to, and he was so good at not being scared. He tried so hard.”
Her voice shook a little. “Best Gryffindor ever,” she whispered.
She turned to look at him hesitantly and kept on talking.
“Harry never got a chance to love, Harry never got a chance to dedicate his life to one person. Harry never got to be loved back in the way that he wanted to be. He wanted to love so hard. And I only knew so little of his frustration, and I wish I could have saved him back then.”
There was a pause. “I need to save him now. Draco, please. I’m sorry about Blaise, he was just . . . a reason for me to feel normal, again, I suppose. I wanted a chance at real happiness again. I hadn’t experienced that since Harry and Ron were alive, and I hope you understand.”
There was a long pause then - a lingering pause that often defined a moment. The heavy tension weighed down the night air thickly and there was a silent pounding that highlighted the hesitation and soon to be crucial spoken moment.
“Can we finish the spell?”
He finally turned to look at her sharply. He looked prepared to say something crude, but all he did instead was nod.
“Don’t worry about Zabini, it’s fine. We’ll finish the spell.”
Hermione suddenly felt awkward and sheepish and stupid, on an annoyingly intense level. She had never really told Draco how she felt about Harry.
“Right, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow,” he affirmed.
“. . . okay. Draco, um, thank you.”
“Right,” Draco said coolly, not looking at her. He got up. “You’d better go to bed.”
She grinned a little and got up. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders as Hermione made her way back to the castle. She walked slowly but surely of the fact that everything was finally reverting back to normal. It was just the fact that she couldn’t help but to think of her last fight with Draco.
She realized something at that point as she determinedly climbed up the hill back to Hogwarts. And it was that she had been thinking about Draco a lot, lately.
But she was going to save Harry. She was sure of that. That was important, wasn’t it? And Ron. Of course, saving Ron.
Harry.
And Ron.
Harry and Ron.
She had talked for a very long time, she had wept and her heart ached for Ron and Harry. She had claimed that they never got a chance to really live. It wasn’t fair.
Didn’t everyone deserve a chance to live?
“Draco,” Hermione whispered.
What are you running for?
“Draco!” Hermione shouted as she clumsily ran, picking up her skirt and scanning the horizon in a tightly wound fit of panic. “Draco!”
She found him close to the edge of the lake and closed her eyes.
He had his back faced to her, and it felt like years since they’d last talked.
“Draco?” she asked softly.
He turned around. His eyes were dim and worn.
He was tired. Tired of the challenges, and of challenging. Tired of being something he wasn’t. Tired of being something he was.
She inhaled sharply and the quiet lapping of the water in the background guided her closer to him.
He looked at her and still didn’t speak.
“I might have forgotten to mention that I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry about lying to you. I’m sorry for being so selfish. I’m sorry for running away. I’m sorry for leaving you alone like this.”
She had been wrong. So wrong.
I’m wrong.
This isn’t about Harry. Or Ron.
. . . this is about me.
She took a deep breath and continued. Her chest heaved and it hurt really bad.
“I lied to you, Draco.” Hermione’s voice was quiet and tight and restricted and she struggled to make herself more heard. She was fighting her own self made defenses off. She was battling herself.
She didn’t want to hold back anything this time.
She looked at him, desperately pleading with her eyes for him to speak, but he didn’t say anything.
“I was wrong, you were right,” she whispered and instinctively turned to look out at the lake in all its peace and silence and judgment and wondered what forgiveness meant to Draco Malfoy.
Did it mean letting her into his life again? She had somehow found a place there and realized that she didn’t feel like leaving.
“I had been chasing to bring Harry and Ron back all this time, thinking it was what would have made me happy,” she said. “Please . . . forgive me. I’m not used to being wrong so often,” she laughed a little. “It wasn’t Ron and Harry I saw in the Mirror of Erised. God, I love them so much.”
She let out an inappropriate chuckle then. It sounded awkward and lopsided and insane, but she couldn’t stop giggling then.
“But it was you, Draco, it was you.”
Her laughs became more apparently, and it hurt them both as she continued laughing maniacally.
And then Hermione Granger finally broke. Her voice cracked and she felt as if her chest was caving in and nothing really had ever felt like this for her before.
“You were standing with me and I was so happy. You’re the only reason I’m still really, really living. And that really scares me. You scare me. I’m not supposed to fall for someone who’s dead. I’m not supposed to care about someone who used to want me dead.”
Hermione looked down at her hands and saw that they were now shaking. Her knees were rattling against each other and her heart literally felt heavy. She felt like if she didn’t change now, she never would. And she wanted to change. She needed to change.
She did, so badly. She wanted Harry back. She wanted Ron back. She wanted her old life back.
But, most of all, she wanted to feel again.
Hermione Granger needed a revolution.
He looked out at the bright dancing specks of white light against the water and turned to her, a soft playing smile on his face. His skin was smooth and radiant. And he was just so, so beautiful.
She had never looked at him like this before. He had always just been Draco Malfoy, kind of snotty, kind of a wuss, kind of blond and kind of pale. But she never looked at him like this before.
She had never seen anything more stunning.
He finally spoke. Her breath was hitched and trapped at the back of her throat and she couldn’t breathe.
“Jump in, Hermione.” An uncharacteristically gentle smile etched on his face. He jerked his head in the direction of the water, still looking at her. She looked back at him and at the water, her knees trembling.
“Why?” she blurted out. “Draco, you haven’t said one word yet! I---”
“I’m talking right now - do you like it when I call you Mudblood?” he interrupted her.
“What!” she cried out.
“Answer the question.”
“No, of course I don’t like it!”
She was shaking.
“Do you think it’s really possible for us to be together, Hermione? Do you actually want go against what that fucking coin showed you? You want to work against truth?”
She bit her lower lip. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying. I know how strongly you feel for certain things - like when I call you Mudblood. And you ran all this way to prove something to me. So prove it.” He stared at her evenly. “Jump into the lake.”
She felt like crying all over again. But when that moment passed, Hermione looked up boldly at Draco and met intense eyes and lips that formed a smile that wasn’t friendly or loving or anything, really. But it was doing things to her. She was still shaking.
Jump into the lake.
Jump.
She promptly fell into his arms and wrapped her hands tightly around him, holding on with all her strength.
And she leaned up and kissed him.
He opened his mouth in surprise as her warm lips pressed firmly against his and her tongue meshed with his as she stood on her tiptoes and closed her eyes, sinking in the taste of his lips against hers. And when they pulled away and she felt breathless, she pressed her forehead against his chest, her arms still around him, and let out a quiet sob. He took a gloved hand and gently pressed her head against his chest, tilting his chin to look up at the sky and she heard a low sigh escape his lips. He didn’t feel so weak anymore.
The flower and the date with Blaise and the fights with Draco were not to save Harry, she finally realized. They were to save herself. And she needed Draco to save her.
A war is a revolution. Change is inevitable when people are torn out of their everyday routine into something so harshly contrasting. Lives are broken and courses are altered, and everything is changed. For the good and for the worse. But in the aftermath, everyone who comes out of it alive in some way is altered, for the good and for the worse. Hermione had emerged from the war torn and closed and scared. So she spent her days torn and closed and scared, all the while trying to maintain the same person she had been before the war. She bottled up her senses tight, locked up her memories and walked blindly through her life in an effort to live as a way only to preserve the past.
Nobody stayed the same after the war. Ron had pent up even more emotions. Harry was dead. But Hermione fought to stay the same. She didn’t like modifications and alterations at all - school uniforms had not changed at Hogwarts for a hundred and two years, and Professor McGonagall would always have her “surprise” quiz on Tuesdays. But this time, everything was different and she knew that she needed to change.
Hermione Granger needed a revolution.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, and he held on. “I need you. Please don’t ever let me leave you alone like this again. Please.”
Draco Malfoy was Hermione Granger’s secret revolution.
Step Two:
The greatest reward the planets earn for themselves comes not from sacrificing mountains or oceans, but from changing those hills and streams so they can become mountains and oceans.
Step Two: completed. Please proceed to Step Three.
She was cold and she was scared but it felt like home here. It felt like everything was going to be okay.
Finally.
This new sort of silence that had suddenly erupted around them in waves and thick motion was different. It was peace. And she never wanted to let go of it.
“Heads, Draco,” she whispered, her voice muffled against his chest.
He pulled away. “What was that?”
“The coin. It landed on heads.”
<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>
Author: street scribbles
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Hermione's date with Blaise finally happens. Some more stuff happens. And then . . . even more stuff happens. Do you guys still read my summaries? :P
A/N: This chapter couldn't have happened without you, burger face. :) And you know that. I know that. So accept my gratitude and don't be shameless and ask for an appreciation gift in return!
Oh, and for Jenny. Chin up, darling. I'm here for you always. Hopefully this is some kind of fucked up consolation. <3
And then it's for all the people who have constantly reminded me that they've read this story, will read it when I update, and will continue reading it - time and time again, I can't be anymore grateful. I suck for the lateness.
I hope this was worth the wait.
Link:
Chapter 16 - Brand New Sight
Tears stream down your face
I promise you, I will learn from my mistakes
Lights will guide you home. . .
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Coldplay - Fix You
“Hermione, ugh, that flower is dying and it smells really bad.”
Hermione shot Lavender a look as she added a barrette to her hair, pulling a thick portion of it back so that her face was more easily seen. Lavender placed her hands on her hips and stared at Hermione’s reflection in the mirror.
“You’re in a good mood today. Oh wow, Hermione! And your hair is not. . . how it is normally,” Lavender said politely right before her pretty blue eyes grew large. “Ooh! Is Zabini taking you out tonight?”
Hermione smiled faintly at Lavender’s reflection in the mirror and nodded.
Lavender squealed like a runt pig, and Hermione felt like a normal school girl, living a normal life. Today, for the first time in a long time, her plans did not involve trailing along an almost dead person, cracking an illegal, possibly Dark, ancient Egyptian spell. For the first time in a long time - her plans did not involve Draco, and it was very different. But she felt good at this very moment and found that she didn’t even mind that Lavender had brought up her flower that Harry and Ron had given to her last year.
“You have to tell me all about it! Will you let him kiss you? Have you practiced? Doing it in front of the mirror is a good trick. Hermione this is so exciting! Your first kiss! Wait, you’re planning to let him kiss you, right? I know some really prudish people who wait until marriage, even! Is that not ridiculous?” Lavender snorted. “Hermione! You’re going to be kissed tonight!”
Hermione’s face turned crimson and Lavender squealed again when there was a knock on the door.
“Of course,” Lavender continued. “I myself obviously didn’t wait until marriage . . .”
Lavender was being irritatingly reminiscent of stepping into a shower to be rudely surprised with the ice cold stream of water. But what can you do? You’re completely naked and you need to shower. So you frantically turn the nozzle over to the hottest it’ll go.
And the water still remains annoyingly cold.
But what can you do? Wait it out.
“Hermione!” It was Sarah Treder, a Second Year, “There’s a boy waiting for you in front.”
“Tell him I’ll be down in a second!” Hermione called.
“Oh, he also wants you to turn around.”
“What?” Hermione said, feeling dismayed, as she turned around back into her reflection in the mirror, where she stared. Right next to Ron and Harry’s decaying flower there was a vase with a single red glowing flower forming from thin air on her desk,
“A romantic Slytherin,” Hermione commented, smiling at the sight of the transfigured flower and gave her hair one last stroke of comb before she patted her skirt down and got up, grabbing her bag.
“Have a nice time!” Parvati called, as she came out of her shower, just entering the room and passing by Hermione. Her long black hair was still wet and was leaving damp splotches on the carpet and Lavender was exclaiming at how long she had waited for the bathroom to clear up in a voice that indicated the necessity for an apology.
“Thanks,” Hermione said over her shoulder.
“What a pretty flower!” Lavender said loudly.
Hermione had not turned around to stare at the flower Zabini had given her. Instead, she merely paused and stood there, almost in mid step. And as she slowly sunk her other foot into the carpet, she stepped out of the scene and observed: Parvati was on her bed, drying her hair with a towel watching along with Hermione as Lavender continued to ramble on - the bright pink color of her jump suit contrasting harshly with the dead, off color of Harry and Ron’s flower that she was standing close by to.
It was the only flower Hermione could see and then she quickly shook her head to herself and inhaled slowly, letting the moment seep back into her conscious.
“Lavender? You do realize that the shower is free now, don’t you?”
Hopefully Parvati had taken up all the hot water.
“I’ve never seen a red this bright before,” Lavender continued, not reacting from Hermione’s bite. “Hermione, do you want me to throw out the other flower?”
She was in a rush and she was exhilarated and excited and almost ecstatic for her date with Blaise. But even amongst that, she knew what was most important to her. And so she paused to speak clearly before she closed the door on her dormitory.
“No.”
* * *
By the end of the night, after a pleasant dinner at an old Italian café that had opened up in Hogsmeade - more popular with the older crowd and a lingering browse through the new bookstore that had opened, Hermione had thought about Harry twice, Ron three times, and Draco once.
And just to clarify, these numbers are considered low. It was the fact that Blaise Zabini came from a well off family. Not well off in the Malfoy sense where their monetary worth was written with their clothing and their material possessions (or simply with their words, verbatim of course - Malfoys didn’t really enjoy the art of subtlety, you see). But Blaise was well off in the sense that he knew how to walk in a way that made heads turn, he spoke his words in a subtle, quiet manner that made girls edge closer, afraid of asking him to repeat and desperately wanting to know what he meant, hoping they’d at least hear his next trail of intellectual thought.
Luckily, Hermione Granger wasn’t any girl. She was smarter than that. And she found that she and Blaise Zabini got along very, very pleasantly. If she weren’t having such a good time, she would have focused obsessively on the details of Blaise being a Slytherin, Blaise was on the Dark side, Blaise was, no, Blaise is a Pureblood.
She could almost have been suspicious. Almost. Just almost.
But right now, the two had been walking in silence and Hermione wondered when he was finally going to kiss her. The night was chilled and the air was crisp as it fluttered through the many layers of her hair.
“Can I ask you something?” Hermione asked softly, interrupting the silence.
She liked to do that a lot, Blaise thought, before smiling a bit and turned to look at her.
“Why did you ask me out?” Despite both their almost successful attempts at being more mature than the status quo at Hogwarts, the date was still awkward. It had just suddenly become awkward after Hermione asked such a question.
Hermione had just suddenly felt more awkward than ever and remembered this was merely her third date, ever in her lifetime, and she had no idea what she was doing.
He turned to look at her and they both stopped. She felt her heart pounding as he faced her slowly and smiled a bit.
And it was strange, because she had wanted to be kissed by him so bad throughout the night. It was this incurable itch that seemed to bother her. She wanted to know that he not only liked her enough to seek her out and ask her out, but that he liked her enough to want to kiss her. As the time weaved slowly through the night, she simply wanted to feel more like a normal school girl.
Yes, it was strange. Because she did really want to kiss him, but as the handsome boy leaned down, closing his eyes, Hermione reeled back two steps and saw that he had his hands in his pocket as this was Blaise’s trademark style of kissing, but Hermione not knowing this only frantically concluded that he was reaching for something.
“Don’t come any closer! . . . Expelliarmus!” she cried, her voice shrill as she whipped out her wand. And everything that occurred after that played out in slow motion as Blaise’s eyes snapped wide open as his body was propelled up and then shot straight down as he fell down onto the grounds.
Hermione cursed under her breath and rushed forward, fretting to herself in panic.
“Why am I so stupid?” she cried out, “Blaise. . . Blaise. . . oh no,” she trailed off and stopped to wipe away the stray tears with the pulled sleeve her sweater.
“Wake up, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . . ”
“You’re never going to trust anyone, are you?” It was a male voice and Hermione looked around, eyes alert and hands clenched around her wand.
“Move aside,” a low voice growled and she cried out in soft spoken surprise as she turned and saw Draco. He didn’t meet eyes with her as he moved past her and down onto his knees.
“Give me your wand,” he snapped. Still shocked, Hermione wordlessly handed it to him and watched closely as his blond hair fell loosely into his eyes as Draco muttered a counter spell. Blaise twitched slightly and Hermione placed a hand over her heart, sighing with relief.
Draco turned to look at her this time, his eyes meeting hers as he handed her back her wand. He tilted his head, motioning downward toward Blaise’s body.
“This is what you want?” he asked quietly, almost mumbling.
He felt himself fading, and his bones were frail and his blood was weighing him down and he felt like he had gone without food and water for awhile.
He felt like he had gone without life for awhile. And he finally felt drained.
A random image flashed through his head just then, it was of when he was a child. When he was three, Narcissa Malfoy had handed him his Chocolate Frog. Draco spent the rest of the sunny afternoon curled up against his mother’s legs, her long filmy skirt pressed up against his cheek - he had insisted that he didn’t want to nap, and he had spent that warm strip of time pulling off the Frog’s legs and letting them melt a bit in his palm before licking up the rich confectionary smudges off.
The slideshow with no sound stopped then, Draco blinked and all of a sudden the images that lay before his eyes were now bleak and grey. It was night time and the air was dead and haunted down, sitting on his shoulders as he stared at Hermione.
There had been life. There had been death. And now, there was Hermione.
That was his mission. Sabrina had clearly stated. Give Hermione Granger closure from the war, heal her.
Draco could feel it - this was the end of his life. And though Sabrina had said life wasn’t literal, he could very well literally feel his life, what had been left of it anyway, disintegrating within him. He was suddenly so tired.
His mission was over.
She bit her lower lip. “Yes. This is what I want.”
He nodded and she waited patiently for him to respond.
“I’ll be going soon then,” he finally said, his words not intending to come out as a whisper - but doing so naturally anyway. His normal role of being the obligatory smirking smart ass had left and it felt like it had been such a long time. Now, he only felt what needed to be said would come out on its own. “I hope . . . you have a good life, I really do, Granger.”
She wasn’t looking at him. It was interesting, the things they said about Hermione Granger. How she was a prudish girl who had way too much confidence. That’s what was so funny, because Hermione had mastered her confident façade so well over these years that nobody could tell when her truth was gracing. And this was it, Hermione was avoiding eye contact with Draco and she couldn’t bring herself to use any façade right now. She bit her lower lip.
“Thank you for this, Draco.” And she meant it. Her head was spinning and Blaise was one thing while Draco was another, but on top of it all - this was her life and she realized this now. This would be a life without Harry and maybe Blaise would be the start of something new. Maybe Draco was her way of coping with the loss. Maybe Draco was a stepping stone.
He nodded again and turned to see Blaise, struggling to open his eyes. He was conscious again.
Hermione was staring at Draco’s backside intensely, and then she was staring at Blaise, and then she rushed over to Blaise, sinking her knees deep into the cool dirt in the night and looked down at him.
“Blaise. . .”
“Hermione,” he said. “What happened?”
“Draco--” Hermione stopped herself in time. She turned around to look for Draco.
But he was gone.
She looked down at Blaise and felt her heart was so light and swift and its beats were dancing with ease. She had found it -what she needed.
“You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered.
She didn’t even think to wonder where Draco was.
And then she thought the same of herself. She was finally going to be okay.
No more worrying about an illegal spell that would have never played out. No more feeling like every day was going nowhere and that her life was just a huge burden. She didn’t have to walk heavy steps down the corridor every day and return to her shifty, uncomfortable bed at night. There would be no more of wishing Harry would come back, because that had all been so whimsical and hopeful - that was like a child version, Hermione thought, that was yesterday. This was today. Blaise was today. She was today. She was content right now. No more unhappiness.
No more Draco. No more complications. She was finally done with all of that.
Blaise looked up at her and stroked her cheek softly.
“Let’s get you back to your room,” she whispered. He nodded and hoisted himself up and before he got up completely, pulled her up with him and promptly kissed her.
Her eyes widened and her heart stopped. And she wondered if Draco was around.
But then she stopped all of that and kissed back hungrily, pushing him down against the ground and letting him run his hands through her hair.
All along, Hermione could not help wondering why she saw Ron while she was kissing him.
“He’s the enemy! I can’t believe you!” Ron was shouting.
Ron never called Draco the enemy, Hermione recalled as she kissed harder.
* * *
“On the ground?!” Lavender squeaked. “My goodness… Blaise Zabini has a wild side after all. What happened after that?”
“Nothing,” Hermione said tiredly. “Lavender, can we turn off the lights? I’m really tired.”
“Oh, sure. Lumos,” Lavender said and Hermione groaned silently as Lavender’s lit up wand glowed softly in the room. “So . . .” she started in an annoyingly sing-song tone before springing her next question. “Are you guys going on a second date?”
“Maybe,” Hermione mumbled sleepily. And it was after a few more questions and Hermione’s barely audible answers that finally delivered Lavender the hint of going to sleep herself.
It was not long after that Hermione woke up with a jolt. It had been a dreamless sleep, but she woke up very alertly and clung to the side of her bed, as if she had been close to falling off. As she did, she caught sight of Blaise’s glowing red flower and pulled her covers off. The hardwood floors made contact with her feet and it was cold, giving her the waking jolt she needed to pick up the flower and study it carefully.
It was only seconds after putting down Blaise’s flower that Hermione noticed her other flower, the one from Ron and Harry, was nowhere in sight. She frantically grabbed her wand and charmed it and then proceeded to prod it throughout the room. But still nothing.
“Lavender!” Hermione cried out, not caring what ungodly hour of the night it really was.
“Hermione, what’s going on?” Parvati asked sleepily, propping herself up on one elbow and rubbing her eyes. “Gosh, what time is it?”
“Lavender,” Hermione repeated evenly, not only louder than before but also proceeding to turn on all the lights in the dormitory.
Lavender let out a tired mumble before her eyes opened. She looked up and hoisted her body up. “What’s going on?” she asked curiously.
“Where did you put my flower?” Hermione asked, a dangerous edge to her voice, placing her hands on her hips.
Lavender didn’t say anything.
“Where did you put my flower!” Hermione shrieked. Parvati looked at Lavender and Lavender opened her mouth.
She didn’t let Lavender answer as she continued stalking around the room, lungs firing up and eyes welling up with bitter tears. “What’s your problem?” Hermione cried out. “Haven’t I been through enough? Why do you talk to me like I’m a child? I’m not! I’ve been through more than you’ll ever go through and you don’t realize that! So you’ve kissed more boys than I have. Big deal! I’m so happy for you!”
Lavender and Parvati gawked.
“Did you lose your two best friends?” Hermione shouted angrily, her red eyes apparent. “Oh, no wait! Look, Parvati is right there. And surprise surprise, Padma is peacefully still alive in the Ravenclaw house.”
Parvati cried out in a silent protest.
“What did they ever do to you? What did Harry and Ron ever do to you? Does the flower bother you because it smells? Because it’s ugly?”
Hermione burst into tears. “You’re ugly! You don’t know what real friendship is, you don’t know what it means to me. And you took away the one thing that mattered the most to me. The one thing left for me to remember them by.”
“Hermione, I--” Lavender stopped in mid sentence as Hermione’s eyes landed on their wastebasket where she found the flower. She angrily stormed over to it and knelt down, plucking it out amongst the various scraps of paper and an empty bag of almonds.
Hermione could feel hot blood rush to her face and for some reason, all the tension and nerves she had seemed to be lacking today decided to welcome themselves back into her system all in one heavy pile. She hastily wiped the few stray, frustrated tears away from her eyes in one sloppy back-hand motion.
She glared at Lavender as she made a point to storm over to the vase in which Lavender had placed Blaise’s flower and yanked it out, splashing scattered drips of water down on the front of her sleeping shirt, an old shirt of Harry’s ironically, while doing so. She angrily jerked down on her knees and violently tossed Blaise’s radiant red flower into the wastebasket.
“How could you? After I told you not to.” Hermione’s voice was dry and coarse.
“Hermione . . . ” Lavender trailed off, but suddenly seemed wary of questioning anything.
“Oh, please, can we turn off the lights? I have two exams tomorrow! Hermione, get over it. They’re both just flowers and they’ll both end up dying in the end.” Parvati cried out and fell back onto her pillow with a huff. Lavender watched Hermione as she quietly tore off her shirt and bottoms and pulled on her sweater and cloak. She was bent down, and stray tears were falling down.
“You’re wrong,” Hermione whispered before she made her way toward the door.
What have I done? I’ve lost sight of everything that’s important to me, Hermione thought to herself as she stepped into her shoes.
“Where are you going?” Lavender’s voice was dim and lingered in the dormitory corridors only for a second.
“To save someone’s life,” Hermione vowed to herself under her breath as she flung the painting to the Gryffindor Tower open.
“. . . I just don’t know whose,” she finished as she walked hurriedly through the empty night drenched castle.
* * *
When the fresh burst of midnight air welcomed her outside, Hermione found that her legs were going in motion faster than her beating chest. Her heart was racing and she ran, something fueling her to charge faster and recklessly through the grounds. The smooth tracks of cool wind tore through her hair and whipped around her face and she kept running, breathing harshly through her mouth. She didn’t stop running until she reached the sandy shores of the lake.
The lake always reminded her of Draco nowadays. How they spent Christmas morning just chatting with the stretch of the lake keeping them company. How she had told him that she always wanted to be crazy for once and jump into the lake.
She remembered what he had said:
“I think you should be ready, Hermione, because one day when you’re not expecting it, something is going to push you into that lake. And I hope that for your growth’s sake, it’ll be you.”
“Don’t you dare, Draco Malfoy!”
“Oh, I’m not. I can’t force you to do anything. I just hope that you will sooner or later.”
“That is so rash of you. You’re the second most proper person I know alongside me.”
“My family’s proper. I’m still a boy trying to live, that’s all.”
There had been a pause and a slice of silence inserted after that moment, she remembered clearly.
“In any case,” Draco had said smoothly, leaning down so that his back fell against the ground, amongst the crackle and crunch of the dead branches and leaves. “I hope you’re prepared. Because things are going to change without our consent, sadly. So I hope you’d at least jump into a lake for it.”
“What are you going to do for the change, then?” she had snorted.
He didn’t look at her then.
“I died for it. And maybe you’ll learn to jump if I tell you that so did Potter.”
When the unwanted flashback finally disintegrated into the night, she was breathless as her head snapped up and she looked around, studying her settings. It was night again, and Draco was nowhere near her.
But, then, before she even paused to catch her breath, she finally saw Draco and found that there was no breath to retain - she felt like her heart had stopped already. He stood there at the edge of the lake, hands in his pockets, hair gleaming under the white moonlight against the deep blue night, stars littered in the background and it all felt like a surreal dream. He turned around and there was not a trace of surprise etched on his face anywhere, he simply looked at her blankly and watched as she slowly made her way toward him, never tearing her eyes off his.
He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He looked . . . dead.
He was dead. It suddenly broke her heart to realize that Draco Malfoy was dead. And so was Harry. They were both dead. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t - this wasn’t the time to cry.
She had cried too much for Harry. It was simply the time now to do something about it.
She took a step closer and looked down at her feet - her flats were dirty and her feet hurt.
“You know, when Professor McGonagall approached me to make a speech at Harry’s funeral, I dreaded it,” she said softly. “Why, right?” She laughed softly. “He’s one of the best people in my life, why wouldn’t I want to honor that? Why wouldn’t I want everyone else to understand how wonderful Harry was?”
Draco was silent. She kept on talking.
“I was thinking selfishly of myself. For petty, stupid reasons. Merlin, they were so bloody stupid, Draco. I didn’t want to cry in front of a large crowd. I didn’t want to break down in front of my professors. I wanted to keep composure for Harry. And I kept thinking: how selfish is that? How selfish is it on my part to care about how I carried myself in respect to Harry? I would be willing to die for him but I can’t somehow express that? I was so stupid. So stupid.”
Oh, Hermione Granger? She’s the brightest witch in our grade. Maybe even in our school.
Something stupid happened, must have been Weasley or Potter’s fault because you know Granger is really smart.
I wonder if she ever takes a break from herself to fail once in awhile.
He didn’t speak. Draco was sitting close to the bank of the lake and had his knees propped up, wrapped loosely around them. But she knew he was listening, so she sat down closely next to him.
“I just need you to understand that. I would do anything for Ron and Harry. And that’s because they made me strong. They gave me a reason to believe in anything, Draco. You don’t know what Harry’s life was like. I hated it when they called him The Boy Who Lived. He didn’t even get a chance to live properly. He lived the first twelve years of his life confined in a house of cold, forced shelter - there was absolutely no love. And then when there was a chance for him to be surrounded by people he loved at Hogwarts, he had to start living in fear - I know he tried not to, and he was so good at not being scared. He tried so hard.”
Her voice shook a little. “Best Gryffindor ever,” she whispered.
She turned to look at him hesitantly and kept on talking.
“Harry never got a chance to love, Harry never got a chance to dedicate his life to one person. Harry never got to be loved back in the way that he wanted to be. He wanted to love so hard. And I only knew so little of his frustration, and I wish I could have saved him back then.”
There was a pause. “I need to save him now. Draco, please. I’m sorry about Blaise, he was just . . . a reason for me to feel normal, again, I suppose. I wanted a chance at real happiness again. I hadn’t experienced that since Harry and Ron were alive, and I hope you understand.”
There was a long pause then - a lingering pause that often defined a moment. The heavy tension weighed down the night air thickly and there was a silent pounding that highlighted the hesitation and soon to be crucial spoken moment.
“Can we finish the spell?”
He finally turned to look at her sharply. He looked prepared to say something crude, but all he did instead was nod.
“Don’t worry about Zabini, it’s fine. We’ll finish the spell.”
Hermione suddenly felt awkward and sheepish and stupid, on an annoyingly intense level. She had never really told Draco how she felt about Harry.
“Right, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow,” he affirmed.
“. . . okay. Draco, um, thank you.”
“Right,” Draco said coolly, not looking at her. He got up. “You’d better go to bed.”
She grinned a little and got up. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders as Hermione made her way back to the castle. She walked slowly but surely of the fact that everything was finally reverting back to normal. It was just the fact that she couldn’t help but to think of her last fight with Draco.
She realized something at that point as she determinedly climbed up the hill back to Hogwarts. And it was that she had been thinking about Draco a lot, lately.
But she was going to save Harry. She was sure of that. That was important, wasn’t it? And Ron. Of course, saving Ron.
Harry.
And Ron.
Harry and Ron.
She had talked for a very long time, she had wept and her heart ached for Ron and Harry. She had claimed that they never got a chance to really live. It wasn’t fair.
Didn’t everyone deserve a chance to live?
“Draco,” Hermione whispered.
What are you running for?
“Draco!” Hermione shouted as she clumsily ran, picking up her skirt and scanning the horizon in a tightly wound fit of panic. “Draco!”
She found him close to the edge of the lake and closed her eyes.
He had his back faced to her, and it felt like years since they’d last talked.
“Draco?” she asked softly.
He turned around. His eyes were dim and worn.
He was tired. Tired of the challenges, and of challenging. Tired of being something he wasn’t. Tired of being something he was.
She inhaled sharply and the quiet lapping of the water in the background guided her closer to him.
He looked at her and still didn’t speak.
“I might have forgotten to mention that I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry about lying to you. I’m sorry for being so selfish. I’m sorry for running away. I’m sorry for leaving you alone like this.”
She had been wrong. So wrong.
I’m wrong.
This isn’t about Harry. Or Ron.
. . . this is about me.
She took a deep breath and continued. Her chest heaved and it hurt really bad.
“I lied to you, Draco.” Hermione’s voice was quiet and tight and restricted and she struggled to make herself more heard. She was fighting her own self made defenses off. She was battling herself.
She didn’t want to hold back anything this time.
She looked at him, desperately pleading with her eyes for him to speak, but he didn’t say anything.
“I was wrong, you were right,” she whispered and instinctively turned to look out at the lake in all its peace and silence and judgment and wondered what forgiveness meant to Draco Malfoy.
Did it mean letting her into his life again? She had somehow found a place there and realized that she didn’t feel like leaving.
“I had been chasing to bring Harry and Ron back all this time, thinking it was what would have made me happy,” she said. “Please . . . forgive me. I’m not used to being wrong so often,” she laughed a little. “It wasn’t Ron and Harry I saw in the Mirror of Erised. God, I love them so much.”
She let out an inappropriate chuckle then. It sounded awkward and lopsided and insane, but she couldn’t stop giggling then.
“But it was you, Draco, it was you.”
Her laughs became more apparently, and it hurt them both as she continued laughing maniacally.
And then Hermione Granger finally broke. Her voice cracked and she felt as if her chest was caving in and nothing really had ever felt like this for her before.
“You were standing with me and I was so happy. You’re the only reason I’m still really, really living. And that really scares me. You scare me. I’m not supposed to fall for someone who’s dead. I’m not supposed to care about someone who used to want me dead.”
Hermione looked down at her hands and saw that they were now shaking. Her knees were rattling against each other and her heart literally felt heavy. She felt like if she didn’t change now, she never would. And she wanted to change. She needed to change.
She did, so badly. She wanted Harry back. She wanted Ron back. She wanted her old life back.
But, most of all, she wanted to feel again.
Hermione Granger needed a revolution.
He looked out at the bright dancing specks of white light against the water and turned to her, a soft playing smile on his face. His skin was smooth and radiant. And he was just so, so beautiful.
She had never looked at him like this before. He had always just been Draco Malfoy, kind of snotty, kind of a wuss, kind of blond and kind of pale. But she never looked at him like this before.
She had never seen anything more stunning.
He finally spoke. Her breath was hitched and trapped at the back of her throat and she couldn’t breathe.
“Jump in, Hermione.” An uncharacteristically gentle smile etched on his face. He jerked his head in the direction of the water, still looking at her. She looked back at him and at the water, her knees trembling.
“Why?” she blurted out. “Draco, you haven’t said one word yet! I---”
“I’m talking right now - do you like it when I call you Mudblood?” he interrupted her.
“What!” she cried out.
“Answer the question.”
“No, of course I don’t like it!”
She was shaking.
“Do you think it’s really possible for us to be together, Hermione? Do you actually want go against what that fucking coin showed you? You want to work against truth?”
She bit her lower lip. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying. I know how strongly you feel for certain things - like when I call you Mudblood. And you ran all this way to prove something to me. So prove it.” He stared at her evenly. “Jump into the lake.”
She felt like crying all over again. But when that moment passed, Hermione looked up boldly at Draco and met intense eyes and lips that formed a smile that wasn’t friendly or loving or anything, really. But it was doing things to her. She was still shaking.
Jump into the lake.
Jump.
She promptly fell into his arms and wrapped her hands tightly around him, holding on with all her strength.
And she leaned up and kissed him.
He opened his mouth in surprise as her warm lips pressed firmly against his and her tongue meshed with his as she stood on her tiptoes and closed her eyes, sinking in the taste of his lips against hers. And when they pulled away and she felt breathless, she pressed her forehead against his chest, her arms still around him, and let out a quiet sob. He took a gloved hand and gently pressed her head against his chest, tilting his chin to look up at the sky and she heard a low sigh escape his lips. He didn’t feel so weak anymore.
The flower and the date with Blaise and the fights with Draco were not to save Harry, she finally realized. They were to save herself. And she needed Draco to save her.
A war is a revolution. Change is inevitable when people are torn out of their everyday routine into something so harshly contrasting. Lives are broken and courses are altered, and everything is changed. For the good and for the worse. But in the aftermath, everyone who comes out of it alive in some way is altered, for the good and for the worse. Hermione had emerged from the war torn and closed and scared. So she spent her days torn and closed and scared, all the while trying to maintain the same person she had been before the war. She bottled up her senses tight, locked up her memories and walked blindly through her life in an effort to live as a way only to preserve the past.
Nobody stayed the same after the war. Ron had pent up even more emotions. Harry was dead. But Hermione fought to stay the same. She didn’t like modifications and alterations at all - school uniforms had not changed at Hogwarts for a hundred and two years, and Professor McGonagall would always have her “surprise” quiz on Tuesdays. But this time, everything was different and she knew that she needed to change.
Hermione Granger needed a revolution.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, and he held on. “I need you. Please don’t ever let me leave you alone like this again. Please.”
Draco Malfoy was Hermione Granger’s secret revolution.
Step Two:
The greatest reward the planets earn for themselves comes not from sacrificing mountains or oceans, but from changing those hills and streams so they can become mountains and oceans.
Step Two: completed. Please proceed to Step Three.
She was cold and she was scared but it felt like home here. It felt like everything was going to be okay.
Finally.
This new sort of silence that had suddenly erupted around them in waves and thick motion was different. It was peace. And she never wanted to let go of it.
“Heads, Draco,” she whispered, her voice muffled against his chest.
He pulled away. “What was that?”
“The coin. It landed on heads.”
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