Chapter 2
The next day, Hermione found herself staring at a hut that looked identical to her cabin.
Same wooden architecture, same chimney, same window. It sat at the edge of the pond, just across hers.
In front of the hut, Draco Malfoy was chopping wood. Usually, when he killed people, his silver eyes were cold, void of any emotion. She hated it—not the killing itself; It would be extremely hypocritical of her to do so because at some point they had all become murderers. It was the ease he was able to do it with that angered her. When he killed Kingsley for example, not triumph, nor fear, nor satisfaction betrayed his features. There was nothing. He did everything with the same hard, cold eyes.
So to see him focused like this, was so funny Hermione almost burst into hysterical laughter.
She could picture herself screaming at him.
She imagined him bleeding out here in the cold with a knife plunged into his heart, with no one to witness his last breaths.
She didn’t know when she had become so violent, but she started to think that pushing him into the pond and watching him drown would make her feel slightly better. If no other emotion could touch him, pain should inflict the final blow.
Hermione did none of those things.
Her emotions felt delayed, and they lagged behind her mind. As if the war hadn’t taken enough, it had to have the last laugh, targeting the heart instead of the mind. This was far more cruel than Legilimency.
There was a bit of a disconnect on what Hermione thought in respect to what she felt. Emotions have always been her strength—her tears, her joy, her empathy, and as much as she despised feeling weak, her vulnerability acted as a defense mechanism, a protection that belonged and cared for her at the same time. Now they were all gone, and it felt as if she was alive merely by the fact that her body was still intact.
Her heart continued to beat because that was its mechanical purpose, not because she had anything left to live for.
It was sadistic, in a sense. Perhaps this was what it felt like to be Draco Malfoy.
She could only stand there quietly and stare at him.
After several moments, where the birds would chirp in and occasional ripples in the pond interrupted the silence, she heard footsteps.
“Greetings, Granger,” Malfoy’s gaze was hard, though if Hermione looked closely she would notice the weariness in his eyes and how tired he was.
“You’re telling me we are neighbors now?” Hermione choked back a laugh at the incredulity of it all.
She didn’t ask him why he was here. It was too taboo and sacred a question to ponder upon. It would spark a conversation she wasn’t sure she would want an answer to.
“Apparently so.” There was a hard gleam in his eyes, and it truly felt as if it was just both of them in this forest, the rest of the world tuned out to their surroundings.
“Now what? Are we going to pretend to be friends? What, talk about the good old days and sing Christmas carols?” She half-laughed, her voice sounding shrill even to her own ears.
“What the fuck, Malfoy?” Hermione whispered after a few ragged breaths, willing herself to calm down and not get so perturbed by him.
There was a pause. For a second, his gaze shifted to her neck.
“If that’s what you want,” Malfoy said slowly, still staring at her eyes, trying to search for something, anything.
“How long are you going to stay here for?”
“Until I die.” He said it so simply. His words carried no satisfaction. He wasn’t trying to shove it in her face. His own death did not scare nor disturb him in the slightest bit.
“So you’re going to spend the last of your days here? And have me watch you die? What on earth were you thinking when you decided to come here Malfoy?” The words spilled out of Hermione at an increasingly rapid speed.
If he was uncomfortable at all, he did not show it.
“Figured I had nothing else to do anyways. At least the nature would provide some peace of mind.” His mouth quirked up slightly.
And you chose to come here. You chose to see me. You want me to live next to you for the next God knows how long until I have to watch you die with my own two eyes. Why the fuck would you do that. Haven’t I mourned enough? Haven’t I mourned enough? Hermione wanted to scream.
She tried to breathe. She desperately wanted to stop thinking. She closed her eyes to try to absorb it all.
This was some sort of sick joke.
“Have you eaten?” Malfoy interrupted abruptly.
“What,” Hermione blinked.
“I’m asking you if you have eaten, Granger. Surely your mind is still capable of comprehension, after spending years with your head buried in all those books” His tone dripping with sarcasm as if he did not want to do this at all.
That sounded more like him.
Hermione blinked again.
And again.
And again.
She didn’t know if she wanted to throw her head back and laugh or cover her face in her hands and cry. Here she was, war-ridden, traumatized, having lost her friends and parents and everyone she once knew, yet here she was,about to debate her lunch plans with Draco Malfoy.
Ah, life was fucking hilarious.
“Not yet, Malfoy. Why, are you offering? How extremely generous of you to do so.” She scowled.
“I caught salmon,” He looked at her, no emotion evident in his face.
A gust of wind bristled past them gently, reminding her that this was reality.
“I don’t mind sharing.” Malfoy added as an afterthought after a few seconds had passed.
And that’s how Hermione Granger found herself, sitting next to Draco Malfoy. They both were plopped on a stack of logs, quaint makeshift chairs they made, facing the pond. Malfoy had lit a fire manually with the logs that he cut, and she wanted to ask him how he even knew to do that because this was the last thing she expected him to know, probably because nobody in the wizarding world needed to engage in the Muggle act of lighting up a fire when a simple Incendio would suffice.
She held back.
Between them sat another stack of logs, and Malfoy was roasting the salmon he had caught over the fire carefully. The fish, gutted and cleaned, had been skewered on a sharpened stick of greenwood to prevent charring, its silvery skin glinting in the flickering firelight. He looked undisturbed, his actions unhurried, like he had all the time in the world, terribly contradicting for a man who knew he was going to face death soon.
This was unreal.
She tried to recall the last time she saw him. A day before the final battle, he had Apparated into the living room of Grimmauld Place with a loud crack, appearing at the living room, right before the television. Hermione was sitting at her usual spot on the couch, staring at the fireplace. The atmosphere was grim, a common revelation looming over everybody’s head. There was a possibility that not a single one of them would make it alive after the battle. No one said anything.
Malfoy looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. He moved with finality, because war did not wait for anybody even if they were nearing the end. After all, he was one of the most powerful generals in the Dark Lord’s ranks. She didn’t even think he would feel relieved if they had won. Malfoy didn’t spare a single glance to anyone and walked straight to the meeting room to find Moody and Kingsley.
After roughly an hour, he stepped out. Everyone had gone back to their rooms. Hermione looked up, slouched on the arm rest of the couch. Before he Apparated away, she felt Malfoy’s hard gaze on her. She made sure to stare right back at him.
There were no words left to say.
After a few moments, she mouthed the words don’t die to him.
He simply stared at her.
“Only because you asked, Granger.”
And then with a crack, he had Apparated away again, knowing that the next time they met would be as enemies on the battlefield.
“Are you going to eat? Or are you just going to continue staring at the trees like a zombie.” Malfoy drawled, snapping Hermione out of her thoughts.
She took the skewer that Malfoy handed to her.
Absent-mindedly, she chews. She can’t seem to remember the last time she had a proper meal. She never imagined there would be a time where she would be thinking back about what happened during the war, because when they were in the war she could only think about life before the war, or fantasize about life in the war. To think about it, the present that haunted them all for so long as a piece of the past, felt overwhelming.
Back then, she barely slept. She took so much Dreamless Sleep she was half certain that the repercussions were beginning to affect her. Eating, was a privilege. When most of The Order was living at Grimmauld Place, the elves would cook for all of them, so at least they didn’t have eating to worry about as an addition when everybody was dying outside. However, she was never hungry enough to eat. Appetite did not seem like a biological issue of hers anymore. She could not remember the last time she tasted fish so fresh.
They both sat in silence.
“You need to eat more,” Malfoy glanced at her, doing a one over at her body.
“Are you expressing concern for me, Malfoy?” Hermione scoffed.
“Just being observant.” He shrugged.
Hermione knew that she looked terrible. She had scars in places that mattered to her once. She was so thin. Her eyes were sunken. A proper, living ghost. But having Draco Malfoy point that out to her, she did not appreciate it.
“You look fucking lovely too, Malfoy. Thank you very much.” She gave him a sweet smile and then immediately returned to scowling.
He snorted.
“What have you been doing?”
Great. Of all people, Draco Malfoy was attempting to make small talk with her.
“Cut the bullshit, Malfoy. Get straight to the point. Don’t you have better questions, like, why I’m here.”
“It is a serious question.”
“Nothing, I have been doing nothing.” She said icily.
There was a pause.
“When did you find out you were dying?” Hermione decided to finally ask.
“A few weeks before the final battle. I was getting crucioed by the Dark Lord in the manor when he told me. Said I wasn’t worth the torture anymore because I was going to die soon. I went to Snape, and he confirmed it.” He smiled grimly.
The pond rippled slightly at his confession, the fire still ablaze.
“So, how do you feel about it?” Hermione implored, staring at her lap, because there were a dozen other questions she wanted to ask but she could only push them back down as they came to the surface.
“Fucking elated, Granger. I used to dream of days like these.” And she would know, because though he had never told her directly, she would have guessed this to be the outcome.
“I’m jealous of you.”
“There are things still worth living for, Granger.” And Hermione hated how he knew exactly how she was feeling.
“Right. Like you would know.”
Hermione suddenly felt very tired, like she could doze off and sleep like a thousand year old tree, where nothing would rumble its awakening.
There was nothing left to say, so they sat in unfiltered silence, until the sky started to darken out the way it does during winter. Actually, there were probably more things to say, but treading along that line would lead to what they have been avoiding thus far.
Neither of them were courageous enough to initiate that.
Neither of them were brazen enough to ask why they found one another at this place, one that had been brought up several times, as a fantasy, in shared conversations during the war.
She looked up to find Malfoy searching her face intently, examining the shadows cast by the fire.
He was starkly handsome. He was carved of stone, like a statue of a war general. A commemoration. Yet, when he was looking at her, his gaze was more piercing than cold. Hermione didn’t know how to navigate the dynamics of their newfound relationship of being whatever this is. Neighbors, she had called it. During the war, it was easy to hate him, because that was the most probable solution to ignore him for who he is, to deem him unworthy of salvation. It was so easy to remember that he had joined Voldemort first, and the fact that he would never be their ally, became a notion ingrained permanently.
Now, she was unsure of what to think of him.
You’ve always known,a small voice echoed somewhere inside her, a lost conviction tangled in her myriad of thoughts.
Malfoy appeared to open his mouth to say something, but snapped it shut immediately.
Hermione stood up to head back to her cabin.
This time, she refused. She thought fiercely.
If there was something left to be said between them, he would have to say it first.