Sorry Doesn't Cut It

Title: Sorry Doesn’t Cut It
Category: Romance/Angst, D/Hr
Author: Narcissa Malfoy

Disclaimer: Let me check…currently the titles are not Draco Malfoy and the Half-Blood Prince, so nope, I guess I don’t own Harry Potter.

She had to tell him. It had been four months now. Four months since she came into his life and turned it upside down, and three months since he had somehow wrecked hers. She looked over at him, sleeping there so peacefully with his beautiful hair all spread out all over her shoulders, looking like an angel with serenity shining all over his face. She knew—she knew how much it cost him to fall asleep in front of someone else, the measure of trust it was to let down his guard, without his wand, in front of her. She knew how much she meant to him, and what it would do to him when she told him the truth. But she had to tell him…she had to. She couldn’t keep on just acting like there was nothing wrong, nothing—she had never been a good liar. Already there were little discrepancies popping up everywhere, little things that should have made him suspicious only he loved her, he trusted her, and now she was going to shatter it all again and the ice wall would come back up, and he would be lost. She was going to lose him, damn it, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was trapped. Not tell him and live a lie of love, tell him and lose him forever. How clever of her, the brightest witch of her year. She had found a path so deep in hell there was no way she could ever get out.

“Draco?”

“Hmmm?” they had been lying in bed together, their clothes still on but cuddled in each other’s arms.

“Do you trust me?”

It was a simple question, so innocuous, but so deadly too. She knew how much it meant—he knew how much it meant.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I—it’s been an ice mask for so long, you know? All ice, covering it—myself, and it’s been there so long I don’t know whether it’s the ice or myself anymore. And I can’t get rid of it either—it’s part of me for good now. If you try to pull it away I’ll just come with it.”

“But maybe you don’t have to pull it away, Draco. Maybe all you have to do…is melt it.”

And now she was going to shatter it all.

“Draco?” her voice was hesitant, but at its sound he looked up instantly, traces of sleep still obscuring his bright silver eyes, but unable to cloud the love for her in his eyes. Looking at those eyes, the only window into his mask of a face, her will trembled, her resolve almost gave out. How could she—how could she hurt him so much? But she had to.

“I—I have something to tell you.” Her voice faltered as she said it, cracking like a child’s.

“Yes?”

At the sound of his voice, she had promised herself—she had sworn she wouldn’t cry, but—

“Please, promise me, you have to promise me, don’t hate me for this Draco, please, don’t—don’t let it destroy you, you have to know,” a torrent of words, dammed up for so long, came pouring out, and he just sat there and let her cry into his strong shoulder—the shoulder that been there for so long, no matter what—the shoulder that would soon no longer be there.

“I’m a spy for the Order.” There. It was out. She couldn’t look at his face. “I was ordered to try to get closer to you—to become friends with you.” To seduce you, they both heard hanging in the air.

“And you did.” It was a statement, so painfully obvious. She blushed as she recalled their fevered love-making, the snogging in dark corners.

“Why?” his voice was calm, controlled. It was not the reaction she had been expecting. She knew how volatile he could become, she had feared curses, hexes—even the Killing Curse. But perhaps, inside, she had known, and she had feared this. This was the icy Draco, the mask he put up to the world to avoid getting hurt, the barrier from behind now she too was blocked out. And she knew the wounds she had given him, because she had been there behind the mask—and now there was wound upon wound, injury upon injury. More damage to his trust.

“I—” her voice, traitor that it was, traitor that it always had been, gave out, and she could say no more.

He sighed, a heavy sigh that sounded like the whole weight of the world was upon his shoulders, and she cringed. “Was it ever for real?” he asked. “The kissing? The—relationship? Or was it all just a set-up? Did you ever feel—anything for me?”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She knew how much it had cost him to lower his pride like this; he was always the one shying from a relationship, always the one shunning commitment, and now he had practically said that he loved her. Please, she begged mentally, please don’t do this to me.

“It wasn’t, huh?” his voice was soft, pained, but hard and cold as ice. “I guess ice always shatters before it melts, huh?”

“Draco, don’t…”

“Don’t what? Don’t get mad because my whole life for the past four months, my only love has been a lie?” his voice finally rose slightly as he said it, but still that vicious monotone that was killing her.

“I’m sorry…” even as she said it she knew how inadequate they were. What do you say to a man whose trust you taken away for good?

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Granger,” he said, and the sound of his voice as he said her last name was snarling, a wounded animal turning upon who has cornered it. He laughed, a hard, bitter sound that made chills go up and down her spine. “You ruin my life,” my trust, said unspoken words, “and you think you can just say sorry like it’s no big deal, and that’s it? You can just move on, I can just move on like nothing’s happened because you said sorry?” his tone was incredulous.

“I don’t know what else to say,” she murmured, hating to do this, but knowing she had to.

“You don’t know what to say? How about, Malfoy, I hate you? Malfoy, I hope you drop dead? Malfoy, you never mattered to me so you can go hang yourself for all I care?”

“No, Draco, I never meant to—it wasn’t like that, I—”

“That’s Malfoy to you,” he snarled viciously.

“You don’t understand,” she said desperately.

“What’s there to understand? You came here to seduce me, to get me to tell you all about me so you can run and tell Potty and the Weasel, and they can tell the whole world. You did your job. It never meant anything to you. End of story.”

She winced; it sounded so—so harsh, so brutal, so unfeeling. But then she had never thought of what it would entail when she had accepted this job. And what could she say? It was true, all of it—or at least it had been.

“No, please, Dr—Malfoy, it wasn’t like that. It was going to be—but, I couldn’t do that. It—it did mean something to me. I—I never meant to fall in love with you!” there. It was out. The words hung in the air.

He just looked at her. Anger was gone—spent in that little exchange of words. It had been an instinctive reaction, really, as he had always done. Anger to cover up the hurt, iciness to cover up wounds. But he could keep it up—couldn’t maintain the façade. She had hurt him too deeply.

He stood up.

“Where are you going?” she asked frantically, afraid that if he went out like this he would kill himself or something equally drastic.

“Out,” he said, waving his wand as he did so. All his belongings zoomed toward him, and then neatly packed themselves into his suitcase. He picked it up, waved his wand again, and fit the magically shrunk suitcase into his pocket.

“Out where?” her voice grew hysterical.

“Hell if I know,” he said, the last tiny flash of anger mingling with his sadness, a desperate hell-if-I-care attitude now. A don’t-care-if-I-live-or-die attitude.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, the only thing she could think of to say, anything to keep him from—what? From hurting himself more than she already had.

Again those eyes flashed before turning that horrible black, devoid of all emotion, devoid of all light. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Hermione.” It wasn’t anger now, just a terrible resignation, a knowledge that he was never meant to find happiness. A terrible bleak sadness.

She watched numbly as he left, shutting the door carefully behind him.

Sorry doesn’t cut it.

Author’s Note: A drabble I thought up—terribly cliché, I know, but still, most plots are. If this ever gets posted, then, hooray. If it doesn’t, it stays on my folder being sad. You hate the thought of a sad story, don’t you? Now there’s a way you can cheer it up. It loves it when you push that little button called Go down there and type something nice, you know? Anything but flames. Constructive critiscm the best! Pretty please with a Draco Malfoy on top?