She Cried

A/N: Not bad, I guess…

Disclaimer: Yes, I own Harry Potter…ha ha, gotcha! As if.

She cried. Everyday she cried. He saw her, sometimes. She always came to the same place, a little hollow just right of the lake where you couldn’t be seen from anywhere, even the Astronomy Tower, and you couldn’t see anything except the good clean earth and the green grass and the plain ground. No worries there, really.

Nobody to see or judge or tease, no one to decide who you would be by your face and your name. Here you were no one, pureblood and muggle-born, old and young, stupid or smart, you were just another person to come to seek solitude. You could fling yourself down there and cry, and your tears would soak into the earth and never leave a trace.

You could lie and gaze at the stars for hours on end and no one would see to tell. It was his favorite place, and now it was hers. That was okay. He could deal with her. If only she didn’t bring her stupid friends, The-Boy-Who-Should-Have-Died-But-Managed-To-Mess-That-Up-Like-Everything-Else and the Weasel. Just her was fine. More than fine. It was good.

But after a while he couldn’t stand seeing her cry anymore. He told himself it was because she was ruining it with too much crying. And the fact that she was now there just about every waking moment so he had no time to be there himself. Yes, that was it, he was upset because he was being kept from his place because of such a stupid trivial thing. He knew what she was crying about; it was so stupid he couldn’t believe that even the pathetic Weasel would fight about it.

It—it infuriated him, that was it, he had never been able to stand stupidity. It had nothing to do with that horrible dull ache in his gut whenever he saw the tears leaking out from under her face, or the sinking feeling that he was getting in over his head watching her. She was ruining his perfect place, and he was going to do something about it. It didn’t matter that he was already too busy with his plan of getting rid of the oaf calling himself a Professor like Father told him too. He could pretend about the arm and do this too; he was a Malfoy.

It was hot, and the back of Harry’s neck was itching uncomfortably, the sun beating down on him relentlessly as he struggled to think of yet another dire fate to befall him for Divination. Ron was off to get them some butterbeers; why wasn’t he back yet? Malfoy’s absurd accident came to mind, and he snorted with amusement and anger. What was the pathetic thing playing at, pretending the scratch was some big deal? It barely even drew blood, for Merlin’s sake.

Oh—scratch, Hippogriff, got it, I will be attacked and eaten by an angry Hippogriff because Monday’s moon collided with Mars, he wrote, his quill scratching annoyingly on the parchment. He wished Hermione was here, she knew a good spell to keep the quill from scratching—oh wait, he and Hermione weren’t talking anymore, the stupid Firebolt. He thought he could even understand Ron’s anger with her over Scabbers and that cat, as Ron called it. Ironically, it was at that moment that the red jet of light hit him, and he toppled over, Stupefied.

The next few minutes were a torrent of rushed wind, muttered voices, a cloak over his head, excuses, and a lot of running and panting. He supposed he should feel worried—maybe this was Sirius Black! But he couldn’t. Somehow there wasn’t the feel of danger to it. Maybe it was the fact that even though his captor wasn’t overly gentle dragging him along, the hands that covered him with the cloak was gentle, and he was dragged along in zigzags, avoiding rough spots and rocks that he felt the cloak barely brush against. Or maybe it was the fact that he could feel his captor’s hands shaking as the cloak was lifted in a deserted classroom, and he lifted his eyes to meet the blue-grey eyes of Draco Malfoy.

Dimly, from somewhere beyond his shock, he saw Ron, his freckles standing out against his outstandingly white face, glaring at Malfoy with a look of pure hatred, but all he could focus on was Malfoy. Malfoy? Funny, for all that he hated the git, he’d never tagged him as a Death Eater. He opened his mouth to speak, but Malfoy beat him to it.

“Shut it, Potter. I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen.”

“Says who?” he growled, knowing it was childish and juvenile even as he said it but not caring.

“Says this,” said Malfoy, smirking his infamous smirk and holding up a wand.

“What?” he said unwillingly. “What could possibly be so important that you have to resort to Stupefying me behind my back—very brave of you, that, by the way—and drag me halfway across Hogwarts to a stupid classroom no one ever uses for a good reason—it stinks in here—and threaten me with my own wand?

“Granger,” growled Malfoy.

“What?” he blinked; this was the last thing he would ever have expected Malfoy to say. Ron gaped, looking rather idiotic with his jaw hanging open; Harry would have snickered but for the fact that he was doing the same thing and probably looked idiotic.

“Granger, I said,” snarled Malfoy, looking slightly demented. “Everyday—every bloody day!—she’s been coming to my place, my private place, and sobbing her eyes out! Everyday she comes, and flops down in my bloody hollow and starts crying.”

“And what does that have to do with us?” asked Harry coldly, but he felt his voice shaking slightly. He hadn’t known Hermione was so upset.

“EVERYTHING, YOU BLOODY GODDAMNED IDIOT!” yelled the other boy, shaking. “YOU’RE HER FUCKING BEST FRIEND, AREN’T YOU? AREN’T FRIENDS SUPPOSED TO STICK BY YOU WHEN YOU’RE DOWN? SHIT, YOU’RE EVEN A BLOODY GRYFFINDOR! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THERE ON YOUR STUPID ARSE, JUST LETTING HER GO TO PIECES LIKE THAT!”

“You don’t understand,” Harry began, knowing it was useless even as he said it; the other boy was too far gone, and inside, Harry didn’t believe it himself.

“I UNDERSTAND PERFECTLY, POTTER! YOU AND WEASEL ARE IGNORING HER BECAUSE OF A FUCKING RAT AND A PIECE OF CRAPPY WOOD! SHE WAS TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE YOU IDIOT!”

Put that way, it did look absurd. But then, this was Malfoy, king of all absurdity. Come to think of it, what was he doing, lecturing him about being a good friend?
The other boy’s voice suddenly lowered drastically, but the resulting ice was far more chilling than his previous lack of self-control. “You disgust me, Potter. You think you’re so bloody wonderful, don’t you? The little hero, always running off to save the damsels in distress, and you can’t even see when your own best friend’s dying right under your nose. So stupid. You’ve got something most people would kill for and you treat it like crap.”

“What’s it to you?” asked Ron belligerently, his jaw jutting out angrily.

Malfoy’s face paled, and he glared murderously at the boy two inches taller than he was. “None of your business,” he answered in a voice that could cut ice. “Now you listen to me, Potter, Weasley. You are going out there. You are not telling anyone about this. You are going to find Hermione—Granger, and you are going to tell her you’re sorry, and you are going to make sure, to the best of your ability, that she never cries again. Do you hear me? If I ever—ever—find her sobbing in my hollow again, I am going to hunt you down, even if you’re at the other end of the earth, and I am going to be your personal hell. What I’ve done to you up to now, won’t be anything. Do you understand?”

Malfoy didn’t intimidate Harry. He was all talk and no action, and both of them knew it.

...really. Not at all. Absolutely—

…maybe just a little.

Harry gulped and nodded vehemently. Beside him, Ron nodded as well, though with considerable more reluctance.

“Good. Now get out.” Malfoy stepped back, his wand slightly lowering but still trained on Harry and Ron, even though without a wand there was really nothing either of them could do.

“Malfoy, wait.” The words came from his mouth before he could think about what he was saying; they hung there, then dropped straight down. “Why are you doing this?”

“Yeah,” added Ron tauntingly, the sting of having Malfoy reprimand him about Hermione obviously still smarting. “Do you luurve her?”

“GET OUT!” the other boy’s pale face suddenly contorted into an animal-like grimace and he jabbed his wand at them, sending them flying backwards against the wall, hitting it in a great explosion and crash, sending dust flying up everywhere. The two boys lay there for a while, winded and stunned, until Harry felt something poking in his back and realized it was his wand. Gasping, Harry and Ron struggled out of the classroom with their wands tightly clutched. Malfoy was long gone.

Across the other side of Hogwarts, Hermione lay sobbing in a little hollow by the lake.

A pair of grey eyes watched her from the shadow of the trees. In a little while Potty and the Weasel would come, and they would find her, and they would apologize, and they would make up again. She would smile and jump up and join them, and with their combined efforts they would undoubtedly save the wretched Hippogriff and the oaf Hagrid who maybe wasn’t so bad after all. And all would be well again.

She’d never remember—or want to remember—her tears in the hollow, and she’d never come back. He’d never get to watch her bushy hair drenched with tears, or hear her sobs, even, in the hollow. And, he supposed, that was really all he wanted. To make her happy.

She’d never know that he had been the one to drive her two idiotic friends to make up. Knowing them, they’d never tell her, and she was better off not knowing. It was much less confusing for her to just keep him as an enemy—much happier. And that was what would, in the end, make him happy too. So why was he crying now, with great wrenching sobs welling up in his throat, tears rolling down his cheeks silently? Soon she would be gone, and that was all that he had ever wanted.

“Yes,” he whispered, staring at the girl lying in the hollow, exhausted from crying. “Yes, I love her.”