A/N: lyrics belong to Hoobastank, the song “The Reason”
Disclaimer: Does my name sound like J.K.Rowling to you?
Warm
A thousand years have made me older…
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face…
He sat up and looked at the empty space next to him. No indent to show she had been there last night. No rumple in the covers, no warmth of a body gone to make breakfast. Just—nothing.
He thought that maybe it was this that hurt the most. Waking up everyday and turning around to feel nothing. No warm body for him to cuddle against. No loving, drowsy smile. Just—nothing.
Nothing.
Like him.
Their friends had always thought that he had been the strong one. He was the man. He was the Ice Prince. Always the mask, always the frosty voice, always the self-control. She, the emotional one. Always crying or laughing or smiling, breaking down into tears at the oddest of things. But they were wrong, all of them. He was the weak one.
She was the one who comforted him in the middle of the night, when he woke hoarse from screaming at the memories, the nightmares swimming before his eyes, he could take her in his arms, and bury his head into her shoulder, and know that it was all right, all right, his father was dead, the Dark Lord was dead, and he had her, she was his.
And now she was gone.
And he was left to cry for the grave alone.
He smiled at her, her brown curls tumbling down her waist in a tousled mess. She looked so appealing standing there, her red lips flushed as though she had just been kissed, her clothes in disarray, that he just kissed her then and there, his lips pouncing on hers and taking possession of her.
Her eyes crinkled at him, and she shook her finger at him, but she opened her mouth and allowed him to take possession of her mouth. His tongue darted in and out of her mouth, gently nuzzling at hers.
But even as he did so, he wondered why she didn’t kiss him back.
He stared at the door of the bedroom unseeingly, wanting to see it open, wanting to see her come in so badly. But it was shut, and she was gone. He lay back down again, curled up in a fetal position on her side of the bed.
It was at the party. Everyone was dancing, laughing, having a wonderful time. He was flushed from the heat and a cup of wine, and he wanted to dance with his wife as well.
He claimed her from Harry Potter, and whirled around the ballroom floor, laughing with her, caressing her, smiling down at her with rare open affection. She smiled back. He kissed her, his hands flew to her buttons, smoothing her hair away, pulling her neckline down—
And she pushed him away.
He stood there in shock for a moment, staring at her. She sighed, shaking her head, mouthing, not now. He decided she was tired and went to dance with the Weaslette. But a few moments later he saw her dancing with the Weasel.
His lips were parched from lack of water. He didn’t want to get up, to leave her side of the bed, to stop drinking in the slight scent that still lingered in her pillow. He stirred slightly and clutched the object in his arms tighter. It was her sweater.
She was putting things in a box, and his lips were quirking at her need for organization. He walked over to her and put his arms around her.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing,” she said, and his eyebrows arched high. She always told him when she was forced to leave on a business trip.
“Where to this time?” he asked.
She turned around now, gently putting his arms from her, and somehow he knew what she was going to say a second before she said it.
“I’m leaving, Draco,” she said quietly.
He stared at her in confusion.
“Draco. I’m not coming back. I left the ring on the dresser.”
He stopped, turned, ran throughout their flat he had bought because she didn’t want to live in the Manor. It was so empty—empty of all her books. He walked in the living room, and there were no books on the floor, on the table, on the empty shelves lining the walls. He walked in the kitchen and her pots and pans she had brought were gone, her cookbook shelves empty. He walked in the bathroom and her things were gone, her toothbrush and mirror and makeup leaving the shelves bare. He walked in their bedroom, and that was a mistake, because from the door he could see the ring glinting on the dresser. The closet was open, and it was empty of all but a few robes of his. Their wardrobe was open and clothes were strewn on the floor. No heels kicked under the bed, no Crookshanks draped on the armchair.
He ran out again, needing to—to what? He didn’t know. She never changed her mind.
But she was already in the car now, and he remembered that she never flew and didn’t like to Apparate. Her keys were in the ignition, and she was closing the door.
He wanted to shout so many things—wait, I love you, Hermione, don’t leave me, I can’t live without you—but the words choked in his throat and she was gone.
He clutched her red and gold sweater tightly, pretending that its owner was here with him, in his arms. On the dresser glinted a silver ring.
He had thought that he wouldn’t break—he never broke, Malfoys never broke, and he had leaned against the doorway just watching the road where she had gone, and he hadn’t cried. Then he had thought that it would be all right, and he had turned to go back inside. Then he had seen the ring on the dresser again, and he had broken down anyway, crying and sobbing, tears running down his cheeks in a storm of agony, crying as he hadn’t done since he was five.
He didn’t move from where he had crumpled at the door for hours. Then, mechanically, he got up and walked over to the bed and lay down.
He had thought to himself that if she had seen him then, if she had known how much he loved her, she would have turned around and come right back. And he clung stubbornly to the thought because he couldn’t bear the voice that kept whispering in his head, the one that wondered if she would even care.
His eyes were no longer silver but black, no longer the careful containment of emotion but the complete absence of it. His platinum blond hair hung in matted strands about his head, no longer sleek and shiny but dull and devoid of life. His face had always been angular, but now it had caved in, hollows where there had just a month ago been none. Bones jutted out in his face, creating shadows within shadows. Paper-white skin hung in loose folds.
She stood there in her room at the Burrow. She had gone there because she hadn’t known where else to go, had walked into her room without saying a word to anyone, and stayed there for such a long time. Trying to sort it all out. Wondering if it was worth giving up Harry, and Ron, and everyone else just to stay with Draco. Wondering if she even loved him. Wondering if he even loved her.
The life was draining out of him now. It had been a month, and he had barely eaten, barely drank, barely slept. He just lay there curled up on her side of the bed clutching her sweater and staring at her ring. The War had cost many casualties, and he had seen so many of them go. He knew what it was like to die. And he knew he was going to soon. And really, it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that she didn’t love him anymore, and she wasn’t coming back. He reached out and grasped the ring. It was so cold…
He didn’t say anything; she knew how hard it was for him to tell her, he just held out the ring and he got down on one knee and he looked at her, and she had smiled through her tears and said yes. He had put the ring on her finger, and she had squealed with delight because it was so pretty.
“I’ll never take it off.”
It had always been warm from being on her finger. When she touched him, he felt the metal hardness and thought about how warm it was. Warm was good. Warm meant she hadn’t taken it off. Warm meant she still loved him.
It was cold.
She didn’t love him.
“Of course I do!” she laughed, that warm laugh he loved so much. His eyes flew open, his head jerked back.
She was there, there in the life, her warm hand reaching out to him, her brown curls tousled down her back. Her amber eyes were sparkling and she was smiling.
“But I—didn’t say it out loud,” he said slowly.
“Huh? What do you mean?” she snapped.
Hermione didn’t snap so easily. That was his job.
“Hermione?” he lunged forward to grab her, to hug her, to kiss her and make sure she still loved him. He spread his arms—and fell to the floor, the vision of loveliness dissolving into thin wisps of nothing as he sat there and cried.
She paced back and forth in her room, wondering what to do. They weren’t speaking to her—still hadn’t, never would forgive her for becoming a Malfoy. So here she was, stuck. She laughed bitterly at herself. No way of going back, no way of staying here, stuck in the middle forever with the worst of both worlds.
She taunted him more often now. That had just been the first time. At first he sat up everytime he thought he saw her, smiling at her and talking to her. But she never hugged him, never kissed him back, and he knew it was all just an illusion. After awhile it got so that he just ignored her haunting vision and tried to envision her as a Veela or something, nothing more. But it still hurt so much everytime he gave up and talked to her and she vanished.
“Goddamnit, Hermione, why won’t you come back to me?”
She hurried around, packing her things. What had she been thinking? How could she have been so stupid? Harry and Ron would never forgive her anyway, she didn’t care, all she cared about was Draco, Draco, Draco, she loved him, how could she ever have thought she didn’t love him, the brightest witch in her year, she loved him, of course she loved him, she needed him, and she was going to swallow her pride and do whatever it took to get him to take her back. If only he still loved her…
He closed his eyes to the newest vision of Hermione. Sweet Circe, just let him alone. Just let him die. He didn’t want to keep living. He just wanted the beautiful empty black oblivion they called death, he wanted it so badly…his breathing slowed.
She drove faster, unable to Apparate due to the anti-Apparition wards she had put up around their flat, cursing herself for it now. Oh please, don’t let it be too late. If I walk in there to find him shagging someone else, I swear I’ll die…
His grasp around the sweater grew limp. His head lolled back slightly on the pillow. His dry lips were cracked, and he gasped in pain as they began to bleed slightly. But it was all right, because the pain wouldn’t last much longer—already it was fading…
She was almost there. She parked the car and jumped out, running up the stairs to their flat, pounding heels on the sidewalk until she simply threw them off in her haste…please don’t let her be too late…
His hand grew limp. The ring rolled down his palm to the very tip until he was touching it by only the very edge of his fingers. His eyes fluttered shut.
“Draco!” she flung open the door.
He prayed he would die quickly, before yet another vision taunted him.
“Draco!”
Merlin, he couldn’t even die in peace.
“Draco, no, you can’t die, goddamnit you stupid arse, you can’t die, don’t you die on me or I’ll really kill you then, oh Draco, damn you DON’T DIE ON ME!”
“Go away,” he whispered hoarsely, blood running profusely from the cuts in the lips formed by the effort of speaking for the first time in weeks. “Shuddup you damned illusion.”
Tears began rolling down her cheeks now, tears mingling with his blood in a rain of red and clear. “No, please Draco, I’m not an illusion, please, it’s—this is real, listen to me, I’m here, I love you!”
He opened his eyes then. “Touch me, then,” he hissed. “Touch me and show me you’re real.”
She leaned forward and gathered him in her arms, rocking him back and forth like a small child. “Oh Merlin, Draco, what have you done to yourself!”
“You left,” he whispered like a small child. “You promised you’d never take it off.”
“Oh Draco,” all she could do was repeat his name over and over. “I love you, I love you, please, I’m so sorry.”
She reached down and took the cold ring from his limp hand. “See Draco?” he opened his eyes again, and she put on the ring. It warmed to her touch.
“I—I love you,” he whispered tentatively. If only this was for real…if only he could hear those words from her lips again…
“I love you too,” she whispered, and bent down to kiss him. On her finger, the ring glinted warm.
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