QR / Chapter 19 - Cover Me
Title: Quiet Revolution / Chapter 19 - Cover Me
Author: street scribbles
Rating: R
Summary: Hermione does what she does best - questions everything. Draco is around with some of the answers, but less than they both realize when more things to be questioned suddenly erupt.
A/N: I have no words. I know it's been forever (forever), and I thought about letting this go, but I knew I would never be able to do that. So, this is for me. And if you're reading this - if you haven't forgotten about this, then this is for you, also. :) Thank you to anyone who remembers. All comments are appreciated!
(And the usual thanks to Allie - thank you for sticking with me! :D)
Link:
Chapter 19 - Cover Me
I'll say it straight and plain
I know I've made mistakes
I've always been afraid
I've always been afraid
A thousand nights or more
I traveled east and north
Please answer the door
Jimmy Eat World - Polaris
They say there’s such a thing as the five stages of grief.
Grief comes in more than sadness. Grief comes with the downfall of a person’s sanity. Grief comes with the depression of the economy. Grief comes with death. Grief almost always comes with death. Sometimes it comes before death. Sometimes it comes alongside the premonition of death.
The five stages are as follow: denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance. One can experience up to all five or one can go through just two, or three, or four. Of course, for the most part it can be assumed to be a sweeping generalization that such simple emotions of life can be used to determine one’s fate. One’s grief.
One’s death.
Denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance.
And for others, we live by this concept. A doctor fifty or so years ago believed in this concept, and she had followers. But then again, not all ideas with followers are good things.
Voldemort had followers, after all.
But, so did Harry Potter. And Hermione Granger was Harry Potter’s most loyal follower.
She had also stopped dreaming about Harry as often since she and Draco started being together. This included them sleeping together every night. They always slept in his room, obviously. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the second to last bedroom in the Slytherin dungeon was locked up - both physically and magically, and not to be occupied for two years in tradition of paying respect to Draco Malfoy and his passing. And as far as Hermione was concerned, she had never felt safer. Every night she would make her way, under Harry’s cloak, to that second to last bedroom in the Slytherin dungeon, apparate herself inside and it was just her and Draco.
The world didn’t know Draco Malfoy was still here, but for Hermione, Draco was very much here.
Earlier in the year when Draco had arrived, Hermione dedicated one person to obsess over every day. Often it would be Ron - when he would finally come to his senses. A lot of the time it was Harry - how much she missed him, how much the loss of him had overtaken her life and the way she behaved from then on.
These days, it was always Draco.
They slept close to each other every night. Sometimes Hermione would wake up to discover her legs tangled up messily with Draco’s, her arm slung over his shoulder, her face almost pressed up against his back. Sometimes Hermione opened up her eyes staring at the door - her head mysteriously at the foot of the bed. Draco thought that incident was pretty funny. Other times, she woke up to feel the ticklish outline of her mass of hair entwined and spread about the pillow, and after she adjusted her eyes and lifted her static charged head off the pillow, she would see Draco facing her, eyes still closed peacefully. A lot of the time this scared Hermione, because she thought Draco had died.
She sometimes forgot that he was already dead.
She was so consumed in being with him, in thinking about him, that it was too much culture shock to snap back into reality and face the fact that she didn’t even really know whether or not Draco was really real.
In every relationship, there come different positions to take. There are different phases that play out, and for Hermione and Draco, it was no different. Because regardless of whether or not they were involved romantically right now or if he was simply a significant person to her, the truth of the matter was sharply defined past all that - Draco was Hermione’s only real relationship all year. In the beginning, it felt more like a professional, peer-like relationship. These days, it definitely felt more emotional. But either way, whether or not either of them wanted to admit it - they depended on each other. Spending the day without one another felt off.
When did this all happen? She wondered.
Hermione finally realized what it was to be attached to someone, and in between all the warmth that encompassed the space in between which they slept in Draco’s king-sized bed with the rosewood panels, she did often feel cold. But whenever she touched Draco’s hand, it would be warm, and she’d feel better. She’d feel at peace. And she had been feeling this sort of super satiation - heightened satisfaction, for weeks now.
She sometimes also forgot that Harry was dead.
Denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance, they said.
“Agh. You kicked me,” Draco mumbled heavily into his pillow. His blonde hair was bent and fell flat on the right side from having been half buried in his feathered pillow for the night.
Hermione didn’t respond.
She woke up that morning with her heart pounding so hard that it was physically uncomfortable. Her feet were cold, and maybe that was the reason she woke up - she was never able to sleep when her feet were cold. Everything felt strangely unsettling, and she sat up slowly, wrapping the blankets around her chest as the faint cold of the room during the morning softly graced her bare shoulders.
She couldn’t remember her dream, but she knew it hadn’t been a good one. All she abruptly could think about was Harry, and how unhappy she was all of a sudden. All she could think about was the realization that had finally come to her.
How many days has it been since she’d thought about Harry? Or Ron? How many days had it been since she was working for an actual cause?
Her shoulders were getting even colder, now. She could feel her hair against her back, and it tickled a little as Draco gently ran his fingers through it mindlessly from his place on the bed.
I need a haircut, she realized.
I need to do a lot of things.
“What’s wrong?” Draco called as Hermione promptly leapt out of bed, the blankets falling down slowly on Draco’s body creating a small puff of cold air from the sudden lift she had made from it.
“Nothing,” she said hurriedly as she pulled on her clothes sloppily and harshly stepped into her shoes. She almost kicked them against the wall as she then backed up and made her way toward the door. “I have to get ready for class, I’ll see you later.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Draco said slowly as he got up and studied her carefully.
She turned around and looked at him, biting her lower lip. It was so much easier now that she had found a place with Draco, life these days seemed so much more livable. But had she not been developing feelings for Draco Malfoy? And was she not sleeping with a Wanderer?
And was Harry Potter not still very, very dead?
Hermione felt her head spin all of a sudden.
Draco sighed and knew that there was obviously something wrong and that knowing Hermione, it needed to be laid out in the open.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said breathlessly, echoing his words, and then left for class.
Denial.
* * *
And then there was anger.
Anger was a different kind of creature when dealt with in grief. This type of anger was so much more sharply cut, sliced through fast and cleanly with a smooth blade that could run finely through ice. It was a biting, hard, clenching type of emotion. It was your regular anger, except more angular, more bitter tasting, and unlike petty anger or anger that erupted from arguments, it was anger with a newfound clarity.
Hermione was angry this time. It had been days since the morning that she woke up feeling different, and she let the feeling settle, after marinating it with thoughts of Harry and Draco for days, it had finally smoothly transcended into a frustrated anger.
And it released itself that day in class.
It was Professor Binns’ standard lecture. The old, lined up mahogany desks were perched heavily in the room, long windows that brought in hazy white fog mixed with premature sunlight spread itself in the background as he droned on about the barter of unicorns during a war that had occurred during the Muggle Dark Ages.
Hermione had not changed this year when it came to her academic vive. And so as she diligently took notes, it took her a full four or five minutes before she noticed Draco lingering at the doorway of the classroom. When they finally met eyes, he motioned for her to come to him, and the channel of communication blended thickly into the nasal voice of Binns’ words in the background.
She looked at Professor Binns hesitantly and arranged an apologetic expression on her face before she excused herself to leave to go to the hallway. A few eyes followed her, and as she neared the doorway, she picked up her pace and walked briskly out into the corridor. Draco followed her, and she did not stop walking until they reached the very end of the corridor, where two empty abandoned classrooms hugged both sides of the walls surrounding them. It was quiet, as mornings at Hogwarts always were. All classes were in session, and the heavy linger in the air of drowsy faint yawns and slow scrawling note taking was intact.
Spring was here, so it was warmer. It was peaceful right now, and they were very far from the collective bulk of classes in session for the time being.
Hermione was standing against one pillar, and the dip in her back pressed against her sweater and the hard stone setting. Draco removed his hands from his pockets and finally looked up at her, strands of his hair falling into his eyes. He didn’t bother to shake them out as he leaned forward and placed his mouth on hers, slowly moving it across her cheek, sliding his lips against the flat of her skin, and then she closed her eyes and stood still as she felt his lips continue to glide along, kissing her ear and then going down to her neck, leaving a hot trail of sensitive tremors across her skin.
“Stop,” she whispered. And he didn’t, so she shoved him away.
Draco then pushed the hair out of his eyes and looked at her curiously.
“I told you to stop!” she yelled.
The anger had ripped. And Hermione had opened this bag violently. Too violently. So that closing it up again would leave it still looking torn and messed up.
“What are we doing, do you have any clue at all?” she cried, her voice shrill.
And this was what the girl did at the paramount - she dominated when it came to this. Hermione was always sure of her hypothesis - she almost always knew how to prove it perfect. She knew how to test it, experiment, and lastly - question it, analyze it and put it through the query of the plan - grind it down and beat it violently until she was sure of how to reach her conclusion. Her behavior in academia had bled into her everyday behavior long before she had even met Harry and Ron. Draco was now no exception - he was going to be tested, just like Ron and Harry had been. He was going to have to deal with her, now that he was an important person in her life.
Draco slowly took a step back.
“Educate me,” he said shortly. No trace of apologizing lingered in his tone at all.
“We’re - fooling around,” she said, and she said it so scandalously, and in such a frightened voice, as if she was about to give up - as if they were pirating microchips or endorsing human trafficking. “And we’re doing it carelessly. And, oh my goodness, I hate this so much. I hate feeling like this! Like I don’t have any control over what I’m doing!”
Slowly, that anger fleshed itself out, thinning into faint waves and flattening into ripples of cut out breathing. Hermione held onto the pew and breathed sharply. She was so angry, and at the same time, she was tragically lost in her head somewhere - all her words were coming out wrong, shifted from her original intent and when spoken, it only made her sound stupid, she knew. But the magnitude of her desperation was still heard with every letter that formed every word.
Anger.
And then all the letters decided to jumble up, clogged at the back of her throat. She coughed, and then she felt herself tearing up again.
Sadness.
“I can’t breathe,” she whispered. Her head was spinning. Draco leaned forward and wrapped an arm around her, tilting his head down to press his face against hers.
“Stop,” he ordered. She was still shaking, and hyperventilating. He took her hands, cold and clammy, off the pew and leveled them before he cupped her face in his hands.
“Slowly, easy does it,” he said soothingly. “Shh, stop, breathe out. Now breathe in slowly.”
She bit down on her lip and sucked in breath loudly.
“Okay, now, let it out.”
She slowly breathed out against Draco’s face and then rested her forehead against his for the moment.
The silence wafted around them, drifting in and out between them and she felt a little more at ease as she gently pried herself away from him, giving herself a distance from him she admittedly didn’t care for.
“I’ve been avoiding you,” she finally said quietly.
“I gathered,” he said.
“I don’t know anymore, Draco. I don’t know what to say or what to do. Tell me what’s going on.”
He pulled away and bit his lip hesitantly, and then finally looked at her. “Why do we always need to know what’s going on? We just need to know what we’re doing. And we’re fine. I’m actually . . . content.”
“No,” Hermione insisted. “We need more than that. I can’t . . . I can’t just do this, Draco. I can’t waste away---”
“Okay,” Draco cut in. “How are you wasting away?”
“How am I not? Every night I fall into some kind of dreamland fantasy with you! We’re not meant to understand that kind of peace. I certainly am not. And I wake up every day and I feel so disoriented, I forgot that academia existed - I forget that this is Hogwarts we’re in. And none of that is right, Draco. I know you might not understand that because you’re not me, and I have high expectations for everything, but it scares me to death when I face reality as I leave your room every morning. Your bed isn’t there to keep me warm during the day and your touch isn’t there to reassure me that I’ll be okay when I’m walking through the corridors to class. I can’t just stay in your room forever, nothing will get done. And I’m scared that if nothing gets done . . . our time will be cut short. Our time here, in the literal sense, has already been cut short! Haven’t you thought about what’s going to happen if the spell doesn’t work out?”
He shifted in his place a little and she stared hard.
“You have thought about it,” she said, almost accusingly.
“Of course I have,” he snapped, and held up a hand as if to pause her from talking. As if he was deep in thought. “I was the one who was sent to you by Sabrina. She sent me on a mission and it was supposed to last only a certain amount of time. And I’m sure that time, as giving as that woman is, is running out quickly. You don’t think I’ve thought about what will happen if we fail?”
She took this moment to breath again as she attempted to calm down. “Have you spoken to Sabrina about all this, like how much time you have left?”
“I haven’t been able to talk to her lately.”
Her eyes widened and were locked in a deadbolt of round stillness as she stared at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She exhaled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she repeated.
“It’ll be okay,” Draco said, a little uneasily. “I’ve got it worked out.”
“How?” she cried out. “In your head or something equally as flighty?” Her voice was shrill, and she demanded this in the bitterest of sarcastic tones aligned with her previous anger and righteousness and Draco wanted to slap her. It was about his turn, anyway.
“Stop it,” he snapped. And then he grabbed her by the wrist. She cried out in an exaggerated pain but flinched for real. “You’re not allowed to call me stupid this time, Hermione. You never were, but this time you’re especially not allowed to.”
“I can call you whatever I want,” she said, her teeth clenched. “You can keep challenging me, Draco, but it won’t distract me anymore. You won’t distract me anymore. And I’m back on track. I’m going to figure all of this out. Like why you were sent to me in the first place. It was surely not to engage in . . . inappropriate romance.”
He snorted. “You think that was my original intent? Like, hello, there was always one thing I wanted to do in my lifetime that I never got to do, Holy Woman, will you please grant me one last wish and give me the opportunity to snog the---”
She gasped. “Say it! I heard you, you were almost going to say it!”
“Say what?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Mudblood!” she shrieked hysterically.
“I didn’t say it, you stupid girl!” he cried out, almost just as crazily as she had. They were two of a kind and he wasn’t sure what would have looked battier - if Draco was visible, the two of them yelling like this at each other, or how it really was - Hermione yelling like this at absolutely no one. “I was going to say snog the most annoying girl in my year.”
“I’m sure you were,” she said uncontrollably. “I’m sure I don’t believe you! You know how much you miss using that word, don’t you!”
“What’s your problem?” he demanded. “You’re pulling issues out of thin air. Out of nothing! Why are you acting all batshit now all of a sudden? Is this what happens after you sleep with the girl? I was warned about this.”
“You are so funny, Draco. So funny. Do you see my face? This is the face of someone who couldn’t find you any funnier!”
“Shut up. Stop.”
She bit her lip, but she did stop, and he kept talking.
“Okay, there’s obviously something that’s bothering you. Something that you’ve been wanting to say, so just say it.”
“What are we doing?” She said slowly and enunciated every word and then dove into the rest. “Why won’t you still answer my questions? Why won’t you tell me how Harry died? Why didn’t you tell me how you died - and why did I have to figure that out by myself through a horrible, scarring spell? And why won’t you tell me why Sabrina sent you to me of all people?”
“You really don’t remember?”
“No,” she said desperately. “I don’t remember anything.”
“You do. I was sent to you because you were a victim in my lifetime. I made a point to make your day hell every time I saw you. I openly engaged in the participation of a genocide that would have eventually wiped out your kind. You suffered. If not directly from my crimes, then the crimes of the people that I stood for at the time. You don’t remember that?”
“I remember that all too well,” she said quietly.
“I can’t apologize for it. I can’t use words to make up for it, because I can’t use anything to make up for it. I just know I was given this chance to come back and do one last thing before . . .”
“Before what? Before you die for good?”
“Originally. And maybe that’s still the plan. But then I decided I didn’t want to die. I decided to use the opportunity given to me not to help you, but to keep helping me.”
“You were selfish.”
“That’s good. Yes. What else do you want to know?”
“I want to know if you’re still selfish.”
“You tell me,” he said curtly.
She looked around and then turned to him again, still not sure of exactly what Draco represented to her. Not sure if maybe she knew what he was to her and that she just didn’t want to let him into her life as that person.
“So you knew that you wanted to keep living. I don’t think that’s selfish at all. And I don’t think I need your help, I think I willingly decided to work with you because I thought it would help me, and I definitely wasn’t in it to help you. But now, everything’s so different, and I hate it. I used to understand what I wanted. Right now, I don’t. I don’t understand anything. I don’t even know what I want. I’m supposed to want Harry back, right?”
“Don’t ask me what you want. I only know what I want.” And he didn’t take his eyes off her when he said this. She looked at him and felt like crying all over again. Hermione’s heart was beating hard and she couldn’t feel her feet. It was all more feelings she couldn’t control or explain and she hated it.
“I do want Harry back. But I think . . . I think I also want you,” she finally admitted. “And I know that’s very wrong. That’s why I’m scared. I’m so scared one will be lost forever from all of this. I just . . . I can’t lose Harry forever, Draco. That would break me. I think that would break society. Things are so static with the world right now, so bleak. And I’m so attached to you these days, I’m too content sometimes. And I don’t think that’s right. I think everyone deserves to feel content and not just me. And with Harry’s return, that could happen. As much as I want just you, I want Harry as well. But as much as I want Harry, I can’t lose you. I’m afraid of losing one or the other. I’m afraid of losing both.”
She was talking fast now, almost rambling. But she made sense. She always made sense to Draco, to everyone. Hermione Granger had a knack for everything that academia liked to wrap its head around - numbers, words, sentences, equations, theories, and everything in between. And in simple terms, what Hermione was really saying was that she wanted things to be okay.
And that she was scared.
Draco leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, catching her off guard again. It seemed that Draco kissing Hermione always surprised her, this was something that was embedded in Hermione since she had known him - it would take her for awhile to get used to Draco Malfoy doing something that left such a genuine sweetness and satisfaction in her.
She allowed the pleasant interruption, however, as she closed her eyes and absorbed the senses that overtook her. Her knees buckled slightly, her stomach fluttered gently and she kissed him softly.
“I can’t lose you,” she said again, quietly, as they let go. “No matter why you came to me in the first place or why it was me that you had to come to, the way I feel about you now - those feelings are telling me that I don’t want to be without you. I can’t lose you,” she said, for the third time.
“Potter is what you should worry about. I’ll worry about myself. That’s how it always was, right?”
“You couldn’t even save yourself from drowning! How am I not supposed to worry about that?”
“There’s so much more to my death than drowning,” he said coldly, not appreciating the fact that she liked to remind him of his weaknesses by way of her defense mechanism.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me.”
“I can’t just tell you these things. Crossing the boundaries of life and death is enough for me.”
Hermione grew really quiet and Draco had let go of her wrist at this point. She sat down gently on the pew in the corridor, her hands grasping onto the sides and Draco sat down next to her, the wood bars of the seat creaking slightly from his apparent weight. The sound of the old timber groaning beneath them brought comfort to Hermione.
Any sign of Draco being real made her feel at ease.
“I’m sorry you died, Draco. I really am.”
“It’s okay.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“It’s not okay. And I know I stress Harry so much, but it really does mean just as much to me that you come out of this alive, too.” She turned her head slightly to smile at him. “What I feel about you has come a long way from back in the day.”
He grinned a little. “Likewise, Granger. And I promise we’ll have this figured out, okay? It’ll be okay.”
“Why can’t you talk to Sabrina, though?” she finally asked worriedly. “Do you think - do you think we need to stop? There’s something we’re doing wrong and if we do it right, or if we stop, maybe she’ll come back?”
Denial, anger, sadness . . .
Bargaining.
He shrugged. “I figure it won’t be too long before I can again. I don’t know much about her. But I’m assuming she can’t abandon her duties of patrolling the afterworld to just following up on me and my responsibilities.”
“But aren’t you worried? Draco . . . aren’t you still scared of dying?”
“I did it once. I think I’d be able to do it again,” he said seriously.
“That’s horrible,” she said lowly. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You don’t want to die again. Nobody consciously wants to die.”
“Look,” Draco said. “Have you ever died? Let’s make an educated guess and say no.” She rolled her eyes at him, and he kept talking. “So, I think it’s safe to say that you have no idea how I’m feeling right now. Back when I was amongst everyone else at Hogwarts, I had my own idea of what death would be like and if an afterlife existed. Now that I’m actually past death, whatever I thought of it before has been shot to hell. Whatever I believed in? Nothing has proven to be true. The things that have happened to me since are inexplicable. They’re . . . you just can’t use feelings and emotions in real life to compare to what I’m feeling now. Because of that, I believe in so much more. I believe in the best to come after death. I think, lately, I’ve been okay with the idea of dying.”
Hermione was quiet again, and Draco noticed that she wasn’t even looking at him. She seemed to be staring down at her hands.
“You came. I mean, you were always there. But it took me dying for you to really come to me,” he said quietly, his voice treading quietly.
She didn’t say anything still.
“Okay,” Draco tried, “where do you think Potter is right now?”
He could hear her breathing, and looked at her curiously.
“Waiting!” she finally cried out. “For his life to be given back to him!”
“And I thought the bit about you coming into my life would score me extra credit,” he muttered. “Will you just . . . calm down? Everything will be okay. Stop worrying. Go take some tranquility pills with your pumpkin juice tomorrow.”
“This isn’t funny, Draco. The genocide of the Muggleborn is over. The darkness no longer reigns. But a war is still raging right now, and you and I could stop it all. You’re not realizing this. You’re just babbling about these whimsical things like how if we’re together, everything else will fall into place. Or . . . heaven? Is that what you call this?”
Draco could feel the faint traces of human anger simmering against his chest. He remembered this emotion all too well back from when he was alive. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Your point. And make it fast.”
“My point is . . . how much more love does it take to destroy this plan?!”
And there it was.
That word.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded angrily. “How far and how stupid will you go to prove to yourself that you’re right? Because the more you dig, the deeper you go, Granger.”
“What’s your point then?” she asked icily. “And make it fast.” She sneered.
And now he really wanted to slap her.
“Love doesn’t destroy a plan!” he shouted. “It only changes it.”
“The changes lead to the destruction!”
“Then what do you want?” Draco yelled. “What the fuck do you want? Do you want me to stop talking to you - to stop feeling this way? Do you want to take some kind of self potion to make yourself stop feeling this way? Tell me what you want me to do to help you get whatever you want, princess.”
“It shouldn’t be about me. Or you.”
“I know, I know. Let me guess. It should be about Potter. Since day one, it was about Potter. It should always be about Potter,” he said condescendingly.
And Harry’s name said in such bitter tones struck up so much familiarity for Hermione. She closed her eyes for a second, and remembered herself standing in this very spot, only a year ago. Harry was by her side. And Draco was saying Harry’s name in the same voice, the same tone, maybe even with the same look on his face.
She opened her eyes quickly and shook her head.
“How can you say that you’ve changed if you still say his name in such vain?”
“You don’t think I’ve changed? Just because I still am not chummy with a dead guy who I used to detest in life?”
“No, I don’t. Because you just don’t get it. It’s about him, Draco. When you approached me your first day here as a Wanderer, you struck up a deal with me and I ended up agreeing because Harry was the core of the bargain that you offered. What’s in it for you, I didn’t care. And I shouldn’t be caring now. My part of this plan is to bring Harry back. And that shouldn’t change. Neither should your original plan.”
“It’s not about me, right now. And it’s maybe not even about you. And, brace yourself, it might not even be about your precious Potter. Maybe it’s about all of us, or just me and you. Or about something entirely different. When Sabrina first spoke to me, she directed me to you. And all I know is that she’s not stopped me in what we’re doing, and she would have. So if she directed me to you to change something, and we’re not being stopped, even if it’s an illegal spell we’re working on - and I’m sure she knows that. If we’re not being stopped, there must be something going right. We’re not just dealing with teachers and parents here, we’re dealing with a higher force. You need to just try to deal with the things happening to us.”
“But it’s something I don’t understand,” she said meekly. And he almost dared to ask her if she was panicking because this obviously couldn’t be resolved through any library.
“I know. What you need to figure out is why you feel so frustrated with this change. With all change in general. Maybe you’re not used to it. But maybe we need change, in plans, in priorities. In everything.”
Because without change, nothing moves forward. And when nothing moves forward, everything stays the same. And when everything stays the same, it feels like time stops.
When time stops, you’re not really living.
And, in life, you should always keep living.
“I have to go back to class,” Hermione finally croaked quietly.
“Are you okay?”
She didn’t say anything, just got up.
“Oh, hell!” she cursed, and both her and Draco stared ahead at the fast trickle of students slowly being released from classes. “I missed all of the lecture!”
“I think you have bigger problems,” Draco said easily, walking behind her as she began to tear through the traffic of cloaks and books and bags.
She looked over her shoulder and glared at him. “Don’t remind me,” she muttered under her breath.
He shrugged. “I’m just a realist like that, you know, since I’m dead and all, I like to---”
“Hey, will you watch it?” a demanding voice streamed through the loud buzz of chatter in the corridor and Draco froze.
Was that voice being directed at him?
He turned around to face an annoyed looking First Year who he didn’t recognize at all.
“What?” Draco cried dumbly, still paused in his tracks.
“Watch where you’re going! Stupid Slytherins,” the mouthy First Year said.
He was talking to Draco. He was looking directly at Draco.
He could see Draco as well?
Hermione heard this dispute between Draco and the First Year behind her and she came to a screeching halt from her trek back to class and her shoulders stiffened. She turned around and gaped at the little boy, and then she looked at Draco.
“He’s a First Year, he doesn’t know who you are!” she said instinctively.
“How is that the bloody point?!” Draco cried, looking back up at her.
“All these students are First Years, I think, Draco! No First Years will recognize you, but soon the Second Years will be let out of their classes, and then . . .”
“Everyone else beyond that . . . will recognize me,” Draco finished off for Hermione.
He fought against the crowd of small First Years and shot Hermione a stricken look of panic. She matched his and breathed in quickly as she fumbled in the pockets of her cloak.
There were no words to describe the intense feeling of lightheadedness Draco was experiencing. He had not felt cold for the longest time, and his Wanderer body had slowly been reverting to warmth in the past few weeks since he had grown close to Hermione, but right now it was not warmth he was feeling - he felt scorching, fiery redness. He felt like he was going to burst into flames from how violent the friction of the panic in his system was pounding.
“Hermione?” a clear, male voice called out. Both Hermione and Draco looked up amongst the crowds and followed the voice. Before he looked to see who it was, Draco placed his hands into Hermione’s cloak and caught hold of the cold silky material. He pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and promptly unfolded it in one swift motion and slid under it. Hermione looked around in a daze and cried out as Draco pulled her under with him.
When she got up and adjusted herself next to him, Draco put his arm around her shoulder to guide her to a more spaced out part of the corridors and she bent her head down low, involuntary tears trickling down her cheeks from the exhaustion that she was facing physically from the fear in that moment that had just occurred now. She turned around and glanced back at the students that seemed so far away as she and Draco made their way to the Slytherin dungeons to his room - the only place they knew to be safe.
“Did you see who saw us besides that First Year? There was somebody calling out your name.”
“Draco, I only told Ron about you. How come more people can see you?”
“Who was it, Hermione? Who else saw us?”
“Neville,” she said brokenly.
Draco could not communicate with Sabrina as of late. Other people were able to see him. What was he? Dead? Was he alive?
Were they going to make it?
Hermione’s thoughts were spiraling out of control. She felt dizzy.
One thing was for sure.
“Nothing’s going to be the same anymore,” she finally whispered.
She looked up at him, and it was that same feeling she had always felt when sleeping next to Draco at night. Even right now, it felt strangely settling to be with him underneath Harry’s cloak as they walked closely together. This way, they were temporarily hidden from the rest of the world. He was with her, and she didn’t know why she felt so okay after such a big event, after so many big emotions - she still felt strangely big and okay. And the new unanswered questions didn’t weigh her down. The panic didn’t make her feel small. She just wanted to take this moment and take small sips of being with Draco like this. She knew it was probably wrong, but she couldn’t help it.
Somewhere between then and now, things had changed. Something took a sharp turn - or maybe something gradually began to bake slowly into what it was now, but from the days gone by to the days looming ahead, everything was so incredibly shifted. She was under Harry Potter’s hiding spot. And with Draco Malfoy. Without Harry. And all Hermione could think of was that Draco had a distinct smell. Strong tea and sweet fog. She breathed in deeply, wanting to stay this way for awhile. It had been almost a year since the War ended, almost a year since Harry had passed. Almost a year since she stood somewhere on these grounds and wondered quietly to herself what changes were coming her away.
Almost a year later, and this was it. She was never prepared for this, but she wanted to learn how to do just that. When Hermione Granger finally bolds - highlights and bullet points her tasks - it was sure to be done, then.
All of a sudden Draco froze, and his eyes lit up.
“We need to find Longbottom. We need to talk to him.”
“But Dra--”
“Do you trust me?” he interrupted her.
“I do.” She was now underlining her mission.
“Then we need to find him.”
In grief, we must face the changes that come our way in the aftermath. In that, there comes a new territory to be embarked upon with grief, and in order to overcome the grief, you battle this new frontier, you look the change in the eye, and you fight to gain your strength, to overcome it, to become stronger. To keep living the way you want to. The way you should.
There had been denial, anger, sadness, bargaining.
And now, acceptance.
So, this was grief. And she had been suffering from that for too long.
She took Draco’s hand.
“Okay.”
<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>
Author: street scribbles
Rating: R
Summary: Hermione does what she does best - questions everything. Draco is around with some of the answers, but less than they both realize when more things to be questioned suddenly erupt.
A/N: I have no words. I know it's been forever (forever), and I thought about letting this go, but I knew I would never be able to do that. So, this is for me. And if you're reading this - if you haven't forgotten about this, then this is for you, also. :) Thank you to anyone who remembers. All comments are appreciated!
(And the usual thanks to Allie - thank you for sticking with me! :D)
Link:
Chapter 19 - Cover Me
I'll say it straight and plain
I know I've made mistakes
I've always been afraid
I've always been afraid
A thousand nights or more
I traveled east and north
Please answer the door
Jimmy Eat World - Polaris
They say there’s such a thing as the five stages of grief.
Grief comes in more than sadness. Grief comes with the downfall of a person’s sanity. Grief comes with the depression of the economy. Grief comes with death. Grief almost always comes with death. Sometimes it comes before death. Sometimes it comes alongside the premonition of death.
The five stages are as follow: denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance. One can experience up to all five or one can go through just two, or three, or four. Of course, for the most part it can be assumed to be a sweeping generalization that such simple emotions of life can be used to determine one’s fate. One’s grief.
One’s death.
Denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance.
And for others, we live by this concept. A doctor fifty or so years ago believed in this concept, and she had followers. But then again, not all ideas with followers are good things.
Voldemort had followers, after all.
But, so did Harry Potter. And Hermione Granger was Harry Potter’s most loyal follower.
She had also stopped dreaming about Harry as often since she and Draco started being together. This included them sleeping together every night. They always slept in his room, obviously. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the second to last bedroom in the Slytherin dungeon was locked up - both physically and magically, and not to be occupied for two years in tradition of paying respect to Draco Malfoy and his passing. And as far as Hermione was concerned, she had never felt safer. Every night she would make her way, under Harry’s cloak, to that second to last bedroom in the Slytherin dungeon, apparate herself inside and it was just her and Draco.
The world didn’t know Draco Malfoy was still here, but for Hermione, Draco was very much here.
Earlier in the year when Draco had arrived, Hermione dedicated one person to obsess over every day. Often it would be Ron - when he would finally come to his senses. A lot of the time it was Harry - how much she missed him, how much the loss of him had overtaken her life and the way she behaved from then on.
These days, it was always Draco.
They slept close to each other every night. Sometimes Hermione would wake up to discover her legs tangled up messily with Draco’s, her arm slung over his shoulder, her face almost pressed up against his back. Sometimes Hermione opened up her eyes staring at the door - her head mysteriously at the foot of the bed. Draco thought that incident was pretty funny. Other times, she woke up to feel the ticklish outline of her mass of hair entwined and spread about the pillow, and after she adjusted her eyes and lifted her static charged head off the pillow, she would see Draco facing her, eyes still closed peacefully. A lot of the time this scared Hermione, because she thought Draco had died.
She sometimes forgot that he was already dead.
She was so consumed in being with him, in thinking about him, that it was too much culture shock to snap back into reality and face the fact that she didn’t even really know whether or not Draco was really real.
In every relationship, there come different positions to take. There are different phases that play out, and for Hermione and Draco, it was no different. Because regardless of whether or not they were involved romantically right now or if he was simply a significant person to her, the truth of the matter was sharply defined past all that - Draco was Hermione’s only real relationship all year. In the beginning, it felt more like a professional, peer-like relationship. These days, it definitely felt more emotional. But either way, whether or not either of them wanted to admit it - they depended on each other. Spending the day without one another felt off.
When did this all happen? She wondered.
Hermione finally realized what it was to be attached to someone, and in between all the warmth that encompassed the space in between which they slept in Draco’s king-sized bed with the rosewood panels, she did often feel cold. But whenever she touched Draco’s hand, it would be warm, and she’d feel better. She’d feel at peace. And she had been feeling this sort of super satiation - heightened satisfaction, for weeks now.
She sometimes also forgot that Harry was dead.
Denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance, they said.
“Agh. You kicked me,” Draco mumbled heavily into his pillow. His blonde hair was bent and fell flat on the right side from having been half buried in his feathered pillow for the night.
Hermione didn’t respond.
She woke up that morning with her heart pounding so hard that it was physically uncomfortable. Her feet were cold, and maybe that was the reason she woke up - she was never able to sleep when her feet were cold. Everything felt strangely unsettling, and she sat up slowly, wrapping the blankets around her chest as the faint cold of the room during the morning softly graced her bare shoulders.
She couldn’t remember her dream, but she knew it hadn’t been a good one. All she abruptly could think about was Harry, and how unhappy she was all of a sudden. All she could think about was the realization that had finally come to her.
How many days has it been since she’d thought about Harry? Or Ron? How many days had it been since she was working for an actual cause?
Her shoulders were getting even colder, now. She could feel her hair against her back, and it tickled a little as Draco gently ran his fingers through it mindlessly from his place on the bed.
I need a haircut, she realized.
I need to do a lot of things.
“What’s wrong?” Draco called as Hermione promptly leapt out of bed, the blankets falling down slowly on Draco’s body creating a small puff of cold air from the sudden lift she had made from it.
“Nothing,” she said hurriedly as she pulled on her clothes sloppily and harshly stepped into her shoes. She almost kicked them against the wall as she then backed up and made her way toward the door. “I have to get ready for class, I’ll see you later.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Draco said slowly as he got up and studied her carefully.
She turned around and looked at him, biting her lower lip. It was so much easier now that she had found a place with Draco, life these days seemed so much more livable. But had she not been developing feelings for Draco Malfoy? And was she not sleeping with a Wanderer?
And was Harry Potter not still very, very dead?
Hermione felt her head spin all of a sudden.
Draco sighed and knew that there was obviously something wrong and that knowing Hermione, it needed to be laid out in the open.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said breathlessly, echoing his words, and then left for class.
Denial.
* * *
And then there was anger.
Anger was a different kind of creature when dealt with in grief. This type of anger was so much more sharply cut, sliced through fast and cleanly with a smooth blade that could run finely through ice. It was a biting, hard, clenching type of emotion. It was your regular anger, except more angular, more bitter tasting, and unlike petty anger or anger that erupted from arguments, it was anger with a newfound clarity.
Hermione was angry this time. It had been days since the morning that she woke up feeling different, and she let the feeling settle, after marinating it with thoughts of Harry and Draco for days, it had finally smoothly transcended into a frustrated anger.
And it released itself that day in class.
It was Professor Binns’ standard lecture. The old, lined up mahogany desks were perched heavily in the room, long windows that brought in hazy white fog mixed with premature sunlight spread itself in the background as he droned on about the barter of unicorns during a war that had occurred during the Muggle Dark Ages.
Hermione had not changed this year when it came to her academic vive. And so as she diligently took notes, it took her a full four or five minutes before she noticed Draco lingering at the doorway of the classroom. When they finally met eyes, he motioned for her to come to him, and the channel of communication blended thickly into the nasal voice of Binns’ words in the background.
She looked at Professor Binns hesitantly and arranged an apologetic expression on her face before she excused herself to leave to go to the hallway. A few eyes followed her, and as she neared the doorway, she picked up her pace and walked briskly out into the corridor. Draco followed her, and she did not stop walking until they reached the very end of the corridor, where two empty abandoned classrooms hugged both sides of the walls surrounding them. It was quiet, as mornings at Hogwarts always were. All classes were in session, and the heavy linger in the air of drowsy faint yawns and slow scrawling note taking was intact.
Spring was here, so it was warmer. It was peaceful right now, and they were very far from the collective bulk of classes in session for the time being.
Hermione was standing against one pillar, and the dip in her back pressed against her sweater and the hard stone setting. Draco removed his hands from his pockets and finally looked up at her, strands of his hair falling into his eyes. He didn’t bother to shake them out as he leaned forward and placed his mouth on hers, slowly moving it across her cheek, sliding his lips against the flat of her skin, and then she closed her eyes and stood still as she felt his lips continue to glide along, kissing her ear and then going down to her neck, leaving a hot trail of sensitive tremors across her skin.
“Stop,” she whispered. And he didn’t, so she shoved him away.
Draco then pushed the hair out of his eyes and looked at her curiously.
“I told you to stop!” she yelled.
The anger had ripped. And Hermione had opened this bag violently. Too violently. So that closing it up again would leave it still looking torn and messed up.
“What are we doing, do you have any clue at all?” she cried, her voice shrill.
And this was what the girl did at the paramount - she dominated when it came to this. Hermione was always sure of her hypothesis - she almost always knew how to prove it perfect. She knew how to test it, experiment, and lastly - question it, analyze it and put it through the query of the plan - grind it down and beat it violently until she was sure of how to reach her conclusion. Her behavior in academia had bled into her everyday behavior long before she had even met Harry and Ron. Draco was now no exception - he was going to be tested, just like Ron and Harry had been. He was going to have to deal with her, now that he was an important person in her life.
Draco slowly took a step back.
“Educate me,” he said shortly. No trace of apologizing lingered in his tone at all.
“We’re - fooling around,” she said, and she said it so scandalously, and in such a frightened voice, as if she was about to give up - as if they were pirating microchips or endorsing human trafficking. “And we’re doing it carelessly. And, oh my goodness, I hate this so much. I hate feeling like this! Like I don’t have any control over what I’m doing!”
Slowly, that anger fleshed itself out, thinning into faint waves and flattening into ripples of cut out breathing. Hermione held onto the pew and breathed sharply. She was so angry, and at the same time, she was tragically lost in her head somewhere - all her words were coming out wrong, shifted from her original intent and when spoken, it only made her sound stupid, she knew. But the magnitude of her desperation was still heard with every letter that formed every word.
Anger.
And then all the letters decided to jumble up, clogged at the back of her throat. She coughed, and then she felt herself tearing up again.
Sadness.
“I can’t breathe,” she whispered. Her head was spinning. Draco leaned forward and wrapped an arm around her, tilting his head down to press his face against hers.
“Stop,” he ordered. She was still shaking, and hyperventilating. He took her hands, cold and clammy, off the pew and leveled them before he cupped her face in his hands.
“Slowly, easy does it,” he said soothingly. “Shh, stop, breathe out. Now breathe in slowly.”
She bit down on her lip and sucked in breath loudly.
“Okay, now, let it out.”
She slowly breathed out against Draco’s face and then rested her forehead against his for the moment.
The silence wafted around them, drifting in and out between them and she felt a little more at ease as she gently pried herself away from him, giving herself a distance from him she admittedly didn’t care for.
“I’ve been avoiding you,” she finally said quietly.
“I gathered,” he said.
“I don’t know anymore, Draco. I don’t know what to say or what to do. Tell me what’s going on.”
He pulled away and bit his lip hesitantly, and then finally looked at her. “Why do we always need to know what’s going on? We just need to know what we’re doing. And we’re fine. I’m actually . . . content.”
“No,” Hermione insisted. “We need more than that. I can’t . . . I can’t just do this, Draco. I can’t waste away---”
“Okay,” Draco cut in. “How are you wasting away?”
“How am I not? Every night I fall into some kind of dreamland fantasy with you! We’re not meant to understand that kind of peace. I certainly am not. And I wake up every day and I feel so disoriented, I forgot that academia existed - I forget that this is Hogwarts we’re in. And none of that is right, Draco. I know you might not understand that because you’re not me, and I have high expectations for everything, but it scares me to death when I face reality as I leave your room every morning. Your bed isn’t there to keep me warm during the day and your touch isn’t there to reassure me that I’ll be okay when I’m walking through the corridors to class. I can’t just stay in your room forever, nothing will get done. And I’m scared that if nothing gets done . . . our time will be cut short. Our time here, in the literal sense, has already been cut short! Haven’t you thought about what’s going to happen if the spell doesn’t work out?”
He shifted in his place a little and she stared hard.
“You have thought about it,” she said, almost accusingly.
“Of course I have,” he snapped, and held up a hand as if to pause her from talking. As if he was deep in thought. “I was the one who was sent to you by Sabrina. She sent me on a mission and it was supposed to last only a certain amount of time. And I’m sure that time, as giving as that woman is, is running out quickly. You don’t think I’ve thought about what will happen if we fail?”
She took this moment to breath again as she attempted to calm down. “Have you spoken to Sabrina about all this, like how much time you have left?”
“I haven’t been able to talk to her lately.”
Her eyes widened and were locked in a deadbolt of round stillness as she stared at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She exhaled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she repeated.
“It’ll be okay,” Draco said, a little uneasily. “I’ve got it worked out.”
“How?” she cried out. “In your head or something equally as flighty?” Her voice was shrill, and she demanded this in the bitterest of sarcastic tones aligned with her previous anger and righteousness and Draco wanted to slap her. It was about his turn, anyway.
“Stop it,” he snapped. And then he grabbed her by the wrist. She cried out in an exaggerated pain but flinched for real. “You’re not allowed to call me stupid this time, Hermione. You never were, but this time you’re especially not allowed to.”
“I can call you whatever I want,” she said, her teeth clenched. “You can keep challenging me, Draco, but it won’t distract me anymore. You won’t distract me anymore. And I’m back on track. I’m going to figure all of this out. Like why you were sent to me in the first place. It was surely not to engage in . . . inappropriate romance.”
He snorted. “You think that was my original intent? Like, hello, there was always one thing I wanted to do in my lifetime that I never got to do, Holy Woman, will you please grant me one last wish and give me the opportunity to snog the---”
She gasped. “Say it! I heard you, you were almost going to say it!”
“Say what?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Mudblood!” she shrieked hysterically.
“I didn’t say it, you stupid girl!” he cried out, almost just as crazily as she had. They were two of a kind and he wasn’t sure what would have looked battier - if Draco was visible, the two of them yelling like this at each other, or how it really was - Hermione yelling like this at absolutely no one. “I was going to say snog the most annoying girl in my year.”
“I’m sure you were,” she said uncontrollably. “I’m sure I don’t believe you! You know how much you miss using that word, don’t you!”
“What’s your problem?” he demanded. “You’re pulling issues out of thin air. Out of nothing! Why are you acting all batshit now all of a sudden? Is this what happens after you sleep with the girl? I was warned about this.”
“You are so funny, Draco. So funny. Do you see my face? This is the face of someone who couldn’t find you any funnier!”
“Shut up. Stop.”
She bit her lip, but she did stop, and he kept talking.
“Okay, there’s obviously something that’s bothering you. Something that you’ve been wanting to say, so just say it.”
“What are we doing?” She said slowly and enunciated every word and then dove into the rest. “Why won’t you still answer my questions? Why won’t you tell me how Harry died? Why didn’t you tell me how you died - and why did I have to figure that out by myself through a horrible, scarring spell? And why won’t you tell me why Sabrina sent you to me of all people?”
“You really don’t remember?”
“No,” she said desperately. “I don’t remember anything.”
“You do. I was sent to you because you were a victim in my lifetime. I made a point to make your day hell every time I saw you. I openly engaged in the participation of a genocide that would have eventually wiped out your kind. You suffered. If not directly from my crimes, then the crimes of the people that I stood for at the time. You don’t remember that?”
“I remember that all too well,” she said quietly.
“I can’t apologize for it. I can’t use words to make up for it, because I can’t use anything to make up for it. I just know I was given this chance to come back and do one last thing before . . .”
“Before what? Before you die for good?”
“Originally. And maybe that’s still the plan. But then I decided I didn’t want to die. I decided to use the opportunity given to me not to help you, but to keep helping me.”
“You were selfish.”
“That’s good. Yes. What else do you want to know?”
“I want to know if you’re still selfish.”
“You tell me,” he said curtly.
She looked around and then turned to him again, still not sure of exactly what Draco represented to her. Not sure if maybe she knew what he was to her and that she just didn’t want to let him into her life as that person.
“So you knew that you wanted to keep living. I don’t think that’s selfish at all. And I don’t think I need your help, I think I willingly decided to work with you because I thought it would help me, and I definitely wasn’t in it to help you. But now, everything’s so different, and I hate it. I used to understand what I wanted. Right now, I don’t. I don’t understand anything. I don’t even know what I want. I’m supposed to want Harry back, right?”
“Don’t ask me what you want. I only know what I want.” And he didn’t take his eyes off her when he said this. She looked at him and felt like crying all over again. Hermione’s heart was beating hard and she couldn’t feel her feet. It was all more feelings she couldn’t control or explain and she hated it.
“I do want Harry back. But I think . . . I think I also want you,” she finally admitted. “And I know that’s very wrong. That’s why I’m scared. I’m so scared one will be lost forever from all of this. I just . . . I can’t lose Harry forever, Draco. That would break me. I think that would break society. Things are so static with the world right now, so bleak. And I’m so attached to you these days, I’m too content sometimes. And I don’t think that’s right. I think everyone deserves to feel content and not just me. And with Harry’s return, that could happen. As much as I want just you, I want Harry as well. But as much as I want Harry, I can’t lose you. I’m afraid of losing one or the other. I’m afraid of losing both.”
She was talking fast now, almost rambling. But she made sense. She always made sense to Draco, to everyone. Hermione Granger had a knack for everything that academia liked to wrap its head around - numbers, words, sentences, equations, theories, and everything in between. And in simple terms, what Hermione was really saying was that she wanted things to be okay.
And that she was scared.
Draco leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, catching her off guard again. It seemed that Draco kissing Hermione always surprised her, this was something that was embedded in Hermione since she had known him - it would take her for awhile to get used to Draco Malfoy doing something that left such a genuine sweetness and satisfaction in her.
She allowed the pleasant interruption, however, as she closed her eyes and absorbed the senses that overtook her. Her knees buckled slightly, her stomach fluttered gently and she kissed him softly.
“I can’t lose you,” she said again, quietly, as they let go. “No matter why you came to me in the first place or why it was me that you had to come to, the way I feel about you now - those feelings are telling me that I don’t want to be without you. I can’t lose you,” she said, for the third time.
“Potter is what you should worry about. I’ll worry about myself. That’s how it always was, right?”
“You couldn’t even save yourself from drowning! How am I not supposed to worry about that?”
“There’s so much more to my death than drowning,” he said coldly, not appreciating the fact that she liked to remind him of his weaknesses by way of her defense mechanism.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me.”
“I can’t just tell you these things. Crossing the boundaries of life and death is enough for me.”
Hermione grew really quiet and Draco had let go of her wrist at this point. She sat down gently on the pew in the corridor, her hands grasping onto the sides and Draco sat down next to her, the wood bars of the seat creaking slightly from his apparent weight. The sound of the old timber groaning beneath them brought comfort to Hermione.
Any sign of Draco being real made her feel at ease.
“I’m sorry you died, Draco. I really am.”
“It’s okay.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“It’s not okay. And I know I stress Harry so much, but it really does mean just as much to me that you come out of this alive, too.” She turned her head slightly to smile at him. “What I feel about you has come a long way from back in the day.”
He grinned a little. “Likewise, Granger. And I promise we’ll have this figured out, okay? It’ll be okay.”
“Why can’t you talk to Sabrina, though?” she finally asked worriedly. “Do you think - do you think we need to stop? There’s something we’re doing wrong and if we do it right, or if we stop, maybe she’ll come back?”
Denial, anger, sadness . . .
Bargaining.
He shrugged. “I figure it won’t be too long before I can again. I don’t know much about her. But I’m assuming she can’t abandon her duties of patrolling the afterworld to just following up on me and my responsibilities.”
“But aren’t you worried? Draco . . . aren’t you still scared of dying?”
“I did it once. I think I’d be able to do it again,” he said seriously.
“That’s horrible,” she said lowly. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You don’t want to die again. Nobody consciously wants to die.”
“Look,” Draco said. “Have you ever died? Let’s make an educated guess and say no.” She rolled her eyes at him, and he kept talking. “So, I think it’s safe to say that you have no idea how I’m feeling right now. Back when I was amongst everyone else at Hogwarts, I had my own idea of what death would be like and if an afterlife existed. Now that I’m actually past death, whatever I thought of it before has been shot to hell. Whatever I believed in? Nothing has proven to be true. The things that have happened to me since are inexplicable. They’re . . . you just can’t use feelings and emotions in real life to compare to what I’m feeling now. Because of that, I believe in so much more. I believe in the best to come after death. I think, lately, I’ve been okay with the idea of dying.”
Hermione was quiet again, and Draco noticed that she wasn’t even looking at him. She seemed to be staring down at her hands.
“You came. I mean, you were always there. But it took me dying for you to really come to me,” he said quietly, his voice treading quietly.
She didn’t say anything still.
“Okay,” Draco tried, “where do you think Potter is right now?”
He could hear her breathing, and looked at her curiously.
“Waiting!” she finally cried out. “For his life to be given back to him!”
“And I thought the bit about you coming into my life would score me extra credit,” he muttered. “Will you just . . . calm down? Everything will be okay. Stop worrying. Go take some tranquility pills with your pumpkin juice tomorrow.”
“This isn’t funny, Draco. The genocide of the Muggleborn is over. The darkness no longer reigns. But a war is still raging right now, and you and I could stop it all. You’re not realizing this. You’re just babbling about these whimsical things like how if we’re together, everything else will fall into place. Or . . . heaven? Is that what you call this?”
Draco could feel the faint traces of human anger simmering against his chest. He remembered this emotion all too well back from when he was alive. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Your point. And make it fast.”
“My point is . . . how much more love does it take to destroy this plan?!”
And there it was.
That word.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded angrily. “How far and how stupid will you go to prove to yourself that you’re right? Because the more you dig, the deeper you go, Granger.”
“What’s your point then?” she asked icily. “And make it fast.” She sneered.
And now he really wanted to slap her.
“Love doesn’t destroy a plan!” he shouted. “It only changes it.”
“The changes lead to the destruction!”
“Then what do you want?” Draco yelled. “What the fuck do you want? Do you want me to stop talking to you - to stop feeling this way? Do you want to take some kind of self potion to make yourself stop feeling this way? Tell me what you want me to do to help you get whatever you want, princess.”
“It shouldn’t be about me. Or you.”
“I know, I know. Let me guess. It should be about Potter. Since day one, it was about Potter. It should always be about Potter,” he said condescendingly.
And Harry’s name said in such bitter tones struck up so much familiarity for Hermione. She closed her eyes for a second, and remembered herself standing in this very spot, only a year ago. Harry was by her side. And Draco was saying Harry’s name in the same voice, the same tone, maybe even with the same look on his face.
She opened her eyes quickly and shook her head.
“How can you say that you’ve changed if you still say his name in such vain?”
“You don’t think I’ve changed? Just because I still am not chummy with a dead guy who I used to detest in life?”
“No, I don’t. Because you just don’t get it. It’s about him, Draco. When you approached me your first day here as a Wanderer, you struck up a deal with me and I ended up agreeing because Harry was the core of the bargain that you offered. What’s in it for you, I didn’t care. And I shouldn’t be caring now. My part of this plan is to bring Harry back. And that shouldn’t change. Neither should your original plan.”
“It’s not about me, right now. And it’s maybe not even about you. And, brace yourself, it might not even be about your precious Potter. Maybe it’s about all of us, or just me and you. Or about something entirely different. When Sabrina first spoke to me, she directed me to you. And all I know is that she’s not stopped me in what we’re doing, and she would have. So if she directed me to you to change something, and we’re not being stopped, even if it’s an illegal spell we’re working on - and I’m sure she knows that. If we’re not being stopped, there must be something going right. We’re not just dealing with teachers and parents here, we’re dealing with a higher force. You need to just try to deal with the things happening to us.”
“But it’s something I don’t understand,” she said meekly. And he almost dared to ask her if she was panicking because this obviously couldn’t be resolved through any library.
“I know. What you need to figure out is why you feel so frustrated with this change. With all change in general. Maybe you’re not used to it. But maybe we need change, in plans, in priorities. In everything.”
Because without change, nothing moves forward. And when nothing moves forward, everything stays the same. And when everything stays the same, it feels like time stops.
When time stops, you’re not really living.
And, in life, you should always keep living.
“I have to go back to class,” Hermione finally croaked quietly.
“Are you okay?”
She didn’t say anything, just got up.
“Oh, hell!” she cursed, and both her and Draco stared ahead at the fast trickle of students slowly being released from classes. “I missed all of the lecture!”
“I think you have bigger problems,” Draco said easily, walking behind her as she began to tear through the traffic of cloaks and books and bags.
She looked over her shoulder and glared at him. “Don’t remind me,” she muttered under her breath.
He shrugged. “I’m just a realist like that, you know, since I’m dead and all, I like to---”
“Hey, will you watch it?” a demanding voice streamed through the loud buzz of chatter in the corridor and Draco froze.
Was that voice being directed at him?
He turned around to face an annoyed looking First Year who he didn’t recognize at all.
“What?” Draco cried dumbly, still paused in his tracks.
“Watch where you’re going! Stupid Slytherins,” the mouthy First Year said.
He was talking to Draco. He was looking directly at Draco.
He could see Draco as well?
Hermione heard this dispute between Draco and the First Year behind her and she came to a screeching halt from her trek back to class and her shoulders stiffened. She turned around and gaped at the little boy, and then she looked at Draco.
“He’s a First Year, he doesn’t know who you are!” she said instinctively.
“How is that the bloody point?!” Draco cried, looking back up at her.
“All these students are First Years, I think, Draco! No First Years will recognize you, but soon the Second Years will be let out of their classes, and then . . .”
“Everyone else beyond that . . . will recognize me,” Draco finished off for Hermione.
He fought against the crowd of small First Years and shot Hermione a stricken look of panic. She matched his and breathed in quickly as she fumbled in the pockets of her cloak.
There were no words to describe the intense feeling of lightheadedness Draco was experiencing. He had not felt cold for the longest time, and his Wanderer body had slowly been reverting to warmth in the past few weeks since he had grown close to Hermione, but right now it was not warmth he was feeling - he felt scorching, fiery redness. He felt like he was going to burst into flames from how violent the friction of the panic in his system was pounding.
“Hermione?” a clear, male voice called out. Both Hermione and Draco looked up amongst the crowds and followed the voice. Before he looked to see who it was, Draco placed his hands into Hermione’s cloak and caught hold of the cold silky material. He pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and promptly unfolded it in one swift motion and slid under it. Hermione looked around in a daze and cried out as Draco pulled her under with him.
When she got up and adjusted herself next to him, Draco put his arm around her shoulder to guide her to a more spaced out part of the corridors and she bent her head down low, involuntary tears trickling down her cheeks from the exhaustion that she was facing physically from the fear in that moment that had just occurred now. She turned around and glanced back at the students that seemed so far away as she and Draco made their way to the Slytherin dungeons to his room - the only place they knew to be safe.
“Did you see who saw us besides that First Year? There was somebody calling out your name.”
“Draco, I only told Ron about you. How come more people can see you?”
“Who was it, Hermione? Who else saw us?”
“Neville,” she said brokenly.
Draco could not communicate with Sabrina as of late. Other people were able to see him. What was he? Dead? Was he alive?
Were they going to make it?
Hermione’s thoughts were spiraling out of control. She felt dizzy.
One thing was for sure.
“Nothing’s going to be the same anymore,” she finally whispered.
She looked up at him, and it was that same feeling she had always felt when sleeping next to Draco at night. Even right now, it felt strangely settling to be with him underneath Harry’s cloak as they walked closely together. This way, they were temporarily hidden from the rest of the world. He was with her, and she didn’t know why she felt so okay after such a big event, after so many big emotions - she still felt strangely big and okay. And the new unanswered questions didn’t weigh her down. The panic didn’t make her feel small. She just wanted to take this moment and take small sips of being with Draco like this. She knew it was probably wrong, but she couldn’t help it.
Somewhere between then and now, things had changed. Something took a sharp turn - or maybe something gradually began to bake slowly into what it was now, but from the days gone by to the days looming ahead, everything was so incredibly shifted. She was under Harry Potter’s hiding spot. And with Draco Malfoy. Without Harry. And all Hermione could think of was that Draco had a distinct smell. Strong tea and sweet fog. She breathed in deeply, wanting to stay this way for awhile. It had been almost a year since the War ended, almost a year since Harry had passed. Almost a year since she stood somewhere on these grounds and wondered quietly to herself what changes were coming her away.
Almost a year later, and this was it. She was never prepared for this, but she wanted to learn how to do just that. When Hermione Granger finally bolds - highlights and bullet points her tasks - it was sure to be done, then.
All of a sudden Draco froze, and his eyes lit up.
“We need to find Longbottom. We need to talk to him.”
“But Dra--”
“Do you trust me?” he interrupted her.
“I do.” She was now underlining her mission.
“Then we need to find him.”
In grief, we must face the changes that come our way in the aftermath. In that, there comes a new territory to be embarked upon with grief, and in order to overcome the grief, you battle this new frontier, you look the change in the eye, and you fight to gain your strength, to overcome it, to become stronger. To keep living the way you want to. The way you should.
There had been denial, anger, sadness, bargaining.
And now, acceptance.
So, this was grief. And she had been suffering from that for too long.
She took Draco’s hand.
“Okay.”
<< PREVIOUS | NEXT >>