Chapter 8
Hermione held her breath, waiting for him to respond.
It was real, wasn’t it? Had she imagined it all? Every sharp gasp that snuck between their lips, every time their eyes darted away from each other or sought the other out, the everpresent ache behind her chest and the way he used to soothe it? It had to be real, right?
“We’ve been over this, love.” He said, sadly, an empty smile across his lips. “It was all real.”
“Do you swear it?” She asked, a fresh sob escaping her throat.
“I swear it, Hermione.” His head tilted as he adjusted the tip of his wand. She flinched, and he winced in turn. “But that’s not what you want to know, is it?”
The arm that held her wand burned along with the space behind her eyes. Her ribcage felt concave as she tried to take a breath.
It was real. She loved him and he loved her and that was undeniably real.
But that wasn’t the question.
“You want to know if it mattered.”
—
Year Four
Hermione squeezed through the open crack in the classroom door and immediately felt hands on her shoulders.
“Granger!” he tilted her body side to side as he looked her over, “You’re okay? Are you hurt? I swear–”
“Malfoy, I’m okay.” She interrupted him, holding the strap of her bag with both hands. “I’m fine. Give me one second, I’ll explain everything, I promise.”
He squinted his eyes, giving her another once over. After a moment, his eyes went wide and he quietly gasped, pulling his hands away suddenly.
“Right, sorry.” Hermione thought he looked embarrassed for having grabbed her; outside of the few times she squeezed his arm they never touched each other, but she didn’t want him to feel embarrassed about it.
“It’s okay, I just… Here, look, I learned this a few weeks ago and mastered it yesterday.” She turned around to face the door and pulled her wand from her bag. She muttered the incantation exactly as she had practiced and moved her wand along the hinge of the classroom door. Malfoy’s eyes didn’t leave her face as she spoke, and she wordlessly nodded her head to the right, encouraging him to watch the wandwork, as well. She had found the silencing charm while researching for Harry, hoping to find something to quiet the golden egg as he opened it. She practiced it on a jewelry box in her dormitory, eventually working up in size until she felt confident it would work on the classroom door.
When she finished, she pressed her hand against the dark wood and pushed it closed. The loud creak that they had grown used to echoing through the corridor was absent as it clicked into place. She smiled at him and he looked back at her grimly, concern still creasing his brow. She supposed his state of anxiety was a bit too high for him to be impressed.
“Come on, then.” She gestured for him to follow her as she walked to the front of the classroom and sunk down cross-legged to the stone floor. She put her bag to the side and turned to face him as he sat next to her.
“I’ll tell you everything I remember, but it’s truly not much.” She started, dropping her hands to her lap. “As I was leaving Professor McGonagall’s class, she asked me to speak for a moment. She walked me to Dumbledore’s office where they asked if I would be willing to participate in the second event. They didn’t give me a lot of specifics, just that Ronald, Cho and I were all being asked. I agreed, and then I was stunned. I don’t remember anything after that, not until I emerged from the water.”
“So he asked you? And you agreed?”
“He asked me, and I agreed.” She confirmed, “That’s all.”
“I can’t believe you would do something so reckless and idiotic.”
“Excuse me?” She stared at him, her mouth hanging open. This wasn’t at all how she thought he would respond. She figured he would be worried, but she didn’t expect him to be hurtful. She thought they were passed that.
“You heard me, Granger! You saw the first event– you saw Potter almost blasted alive and then chased across the grounds by a bloody Horntail– and then you agreed to be a part of the follow up performance yourself? You let them stun you so you would be completely defenseless? For what? For Krum? A man you hardly know? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you do!”
“How dare you!”
“No, how dare you! How dare you endanger yourself like that! Agree to that without even thinking–” His voice shook and he paused to steady his breathing. When she found a way to close the classroom door she imagined it would give them freedom to speak above a whisper and laugh uninhibitedly, but the first thing they used it for was to scream at each other. How very Granger and Malfoy of them.
Hermione noticed for the first time how red his eyes were in their shadowed sockets, as if he had been crying or sleep deprived, or both. His hair was standing up the way it did when he gripped at his roots, a nervous habit she had noticed in him overtime. His hands flailed wildly in front of him while he spoke, his panicked tone raised in such a way that Hermione didn’t think she’d recognize it as his voice if she wasn’t looking directly at him.
“Malfoy,” she said calmly, “I understand you were worried, but truly it was nothing, it was like I was asleep—”
He laughed harshly, tilting his head back. He kept his gaze turned up toward the ceiling.
“Well I’m glad it felt like a nap for you, Granger, because it was literal hell for me.”
Her shoulders sank as she looked at him, trying to decipher what he meant.
“It was horrible.” He said on an exhale, lowering his eyes back to hers, “I was looking for you in the boats and in the crowd, but you were nowhere. I must have plotted every other Gryffindor at this bloody school, but you weren’t anywhere among them. I thought you had come here, for some reason. I was about to leave, to come check, when I heard Parkinson say your name.
“She was surrounded by all of our friends laughing about you being chained at the bottom of the lake. I won’t repeat everything they said— I don’t even know that I could— but they were all laughing, Granger. They said Krum should leave you down there, that he should let you drown. And they looked at me, waited for me to make a joke or laugh with them, and I–” He stuttered, his voice cracking, “I had to. I had to play the part.”
She watched as his face scrunched and he struggled to maintain his composure. She felt wretched. She wanted to reach out and grab his arm but she stopped herself for fear she would interrupt.
“I felt like I was burning alive from the inside out. I’ve never felt that way before. I was so worried and angry and I thought I would have to break my wand in half to keep from hexing them. I thought I would have to hex myself to keep from jumping in the lake after you.” He flexed and released his hands in his lap, watching as they trembled.
“So I’m glad it felt like a deep slumber for you, Granger, but I think it was actually the worst day of my entire life, thank you.”
“Malfoy,” she struggled to find a meaningful response, “I had no idea.”
“How could you have?” He let out an empty laugh, “And I know this is what you do, alright? You’re selfless and courageous and you do what is asked of you but—“
He sighed, looking up at her through his eyelashes.
“But it scares the hell out of me, Granger.” Another laugh escaped him, “I don’t know how you’ve done it but… but you’ve become one of the most important people in my life. And when you do things like fight a werewolf or volunteer for a death trap I— I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel powerless.”
She waited to make sure he was finished, feeling it was important that he said everything on his mind. When she was certain he was done, she raised her chin high and met his eyes.
“You’re right.” She started, “I am selfless and courageous and that sometimes leads me to do dangerous, impulsive things.”
“I hope there’s a but,” he smiled at her, halfheartedly.
“But,” she smirked, “I didn’t think about what that would mean for you, and I should have.”
He closed his eyes and nodded slightly, accepting her response. She laid down on her back, looking up around the room.
“It feels like another world in here, sometimes. Like the things we do out there don’t affect us in here, and the other way around. I know it’s not true, but… I guess I just get wrapped up in that idea.”
“Yeah,” He said, following her down to the floor, “I think I know what you mean.”
They laid there, side by side, the way they had so many times before, but Hermione couldn’t help feeling like the air around them was different. They had both pushed, and neither had pulled. His confession that she had become important to him hung heavy in the air, and she hoped he knew the same was true for her. After a year and half meeting in this room, their entire relationship was turned inside out.
She heard Malfoy release a shaky breath and looked over at him from the corner of her eyes. She didn’t want to risk turning her head and shifting this fragile dynamic they existed in, but she could feel his stress from the day melting off of him. His chest rose and fell sharply and his eyes were squeezed shut. She heard him sniffle softly, as if he had been trying to hide it. She felt her own tears begin rolling from the corners of her eyes into her hairline and ears.
She steeled herself and mustered up all of that courage he had just mentioned, swinging her right hand out slowly to brush the back of her fingers against his. She heard him gasp lightly and her stomach dropped. She had gone too far, pushed too much. She was about to pull her hand back when he flexed his own and wrapped his fingers around hers. She released the breath she held and relaxed her arm, the rest of her body following suit.
She thought about saying something, maybe apologizing again or providing him the same confession he gave her, but as they laid there, fingers entwined as much as they dared within their delicate balance, she chose silence.
Silence was comforting for them. In the silence, they were different.
They couldn’t forget who they were outside these walls, but in the silence, they could be something else, as well.
In the silence, they could be here, holding hands in the dark, and it didn’t have to be as complicated.
In the silence, she thought, they could just be.