Creve Coeur
The moment Draco bumped into Hermione in the muggle bookstore three years ago, he knew she was different, the Granger he knew from Hogwarts was gone. The war was painted on her face, and her eyes reflected a deep sadness that he feared he would drown in if he gazed into them for too long. When she met him for coffee the next day, he noted that she was quieter, more subdued. 16-year-old Draco would have celebrated a quieter Hermione, but as an adult who bore his own physical and mental scars from the war, he found her shocking change in demeanor alarming.
Hi, says the girl with the right eyes,
That pairs pretty well when she hits you with the soft smile.
She was still Granger, hair that had a life of its own, a passion for knowledge, she even smelled the same, cinnamon and papyrus. Her height had stayed the same, but she now sported some gentle curves, which Draco found refreshing compared the heroin chic look that was the preference among the pure-blooded women his mother was constantly trying to set him up with. But Draco knew she was suffering, he knew that some part of her was still trapped in the war, and he knew that when she walked, she walked with ghosts. He knew because sometimes he saw the same look in his own eyes in the mirror. Haunted.
They fell into a pattern, they would meet up for coffee, a drink, anything really, but it always ended the same. They would inevitably end up in Draco’s flat, where they would tear at each other’s clothes and then at each other until both lay panting, somehow feeling both complete and completely broken at the same time.
Draco would always try to speak to her when they were finished, but she would meet his gaze with her haunted eyes and throw him a sad smile before getting dressed and leaving for the night. He wouldn’t hear from her for a few weeks, but he knew at some point her owl would come tapping at his window, it always did.
Hi, says the girl who doesn't have time for relationship advice,
Rather relationships at all.
She holds her breath all day and fucking gasps for air at night.
She promised she would love me, but only 'til the morning time.
After several months of this, Draco reached out his hand one night, stopping her before she could leave his bed to start redressing. She looked at him like a skittish deer ready to bolt.
“Please” he pleaded.
She didn’t move, but he could see her grappling with her emotions behind those grief-stricken eyes.
“I can’t” she whispered, a single tear making its way down her cheek, but before he could argue she had already gathered her clothes and bolted to the floo.
Draco sighed and buried his head into his hands in frustration. Somewhere along the line he had fallen in love, he could feel it. It was a weird and invasive feeling, and he didn’t know what to do with it or where to put it. It wasn’t something he could put on display behind a plate glass case, and it wasn’t something he could keep locked away in his vault in Gringotts for safe keeping, and Draco had no use for it. It almost felt like a cosmic joke, Draco Malfoy finally falls in love, and it’s with the only person more closed off and fucked up than he is.
She'll never talk about the feelings that she felt today.
Better kept inside of a fence, inside of a cage, inside of a safe,
That's safe for her, 'cause they, they just hurt,
And she don't know why that God's on dirt.
It took three more months to finally convince her to stay the night, and even when she finally did, he wasn’t sure how much sleep she was really getting. Whatever sleep she did manage, was riddled with nightmares, and she would usually wake up screaming. Draco tried to comfort her the first few times, but she would shake him off and lock herself in the bathroom, sometimes for the rest of the night. Eventually he stopped trying, but he couldn’t help but lie awake in the blackness silently hoping to himself that this would be the night, the night she would lower her walls and share some of her burden with him.
One night, things got particularly bad, he woke to the sound of her crying next to him, as he did so many nights. But when he lit his wand to illuminate her face, cold dread trickled over his body. Hermione Granger was crimson, and upon further inspection, so were the surrounding sheets. He shook her awake, trying to keep the fear from reaching his eyes.
“Granger. Granger, wake up. Granger.”.
She bolted upright, sobs wracking her body, eyes frantically darting around her trying to get her bearings. Her gaze finally rested on all of the blood and she froze, she locked eyes with Draco, and for the first time since bumping into her at that bookshop, Draco saw raw unfiltered emotions flicker behind her eyes, one of which he recognized with a sinking stomach. Fear.
Before she could panic, Draco did the first thing he could think of, he gripped her face in his hands and kept her from breaking eye contact.
“Hermione. You’re okay. You’re safe. You need to breathe. Look at me, look at me. You’re in my flat, you’ve been here before, remember?”
Recognition bloomed in her eyes, slowly at first.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Draco Malfoy” she breathed, and he couldn’t deny the spark that lit up inside of him at the sound of his name on her lips.
“Do you know where you are?”
She looked around her, still slightly panicked, but started nodding, more to herself than anyone.
“Your flat… I’ve been here before”.
“That’s right, good girl, keep breathing for me”.
He used his own breath to set the pace for her, and her gaze clung to his like a lifeline.
Finally, once she was calm, Draco picked up her left forearm and observed the angry wound that was still seeping blood. It appeared she had tried to scratch off her mudblood scar in her sleep.
He debated what to say, every time he tried to get her to open up, he was always met with a brick wall, and the fact that she was still even sitting in bed with him instead of locking herself away in his bathroom until the sun comes up was already uncharted territory for the both of them.
Draco decided to switch up his tactic, instead of trying to get her to talk, he would instead.
“I used to have nightmares about that night too”.
She immediately threw him a skeptical look and tried to jerk her hand away, but he held tight.
“I’m serious Granger, I had nightmares for years”.
She searched his eyes for some sort of deception but seemed to find none.
The change in the air was palpable, and Draco swears he could physically see her lower her guard a fraction, her curiosity was getting the better of her. Hermione Granger would always be a swot. Taking this as a good sign, he continued.
“I used to dream that I was a boy again, maybe 5 or 6, I used to get lost in the manor you see. So I would be wandering through the halls, and they would all look the same, every corner I would turn would lead to another hall that looked exactly the same. And suddenly I would start to hear you scream, and I always knew it was you screaming, because it was the same scream from that night, the night. And then suddenly I’m 16 again, but this time I want to make it right, stop my aunt Bella, but I can’t find you. I run through the hallways, and no matter how fast I run or how many corners I turn, I never get closer to you. I would just run and run, and your screams would get louder and louder, until they were so loud, I thought my ears would bleed, and then I would wake up, and it turns out it was me screaming all along”.
The deepness of his confession shocked even himself, and he stared at his palms, at a loss for what to say next.
“I dreamt about that night for years, it’s always been my biggest regret, that I didn’t try to help you” he choked out.
She was staring at him with eyes so despondent that he felt they may swallow him whole, tears were streaming down her cheeks and her bottom lip was quivering. This was progress.
“How did you get them to stop?” she whispered.
“I didn’t, I still get them sometimes, but time and a decent mind healer really helped”.
Hermione began chewing on her bottom lip and stared off into the darkness of Draco’s flat, deep in thought.
Draco took a deep breath, he knew better than to ask if she wanted to talk about it, but he couldn’t resist opening a line of communication with her, there may be no better time.
“I just want you to know that you can talk about it with me if you would ever like to. You don’t have to carry that burden by yourself forever, and nothing would make me happier than to take some of that weight off you, in my eyes it’s a sort of penance for not being a better man when I was 16. I won’t judge you, I won’t interrupt you, I’ll just listen. I L… I care for you Hermione, and I want to help, if you’ll let me”. Draco held his breath, waiting for her to respond.
Hermione closed her eyes, her face still. She waited until the tears stopped falling before she opened her eyes again and looked over at Draco, and when she did, it was all he could do to not to recoil.
Her eyes were empty, all the emotion had disappeared. She smiled gently and took his hand in hers.
“Can we go back to sleep?” she asked quietly.
Draco stared at her, the sudden shift was off-putting and was making him nervous. Something wasn’t right, but he knew that pushing it anymore tonight would only be counterproductive.
“Sure” he mumbled, casting a scourgify on the sheets before crawling back into them. He was surprised when he felt her cold hands reach for him under the sheets, and even more surprised when she pulled his face to hers and kissed him. It was melancholy and tasted like the remnants of her tears, but he loved it all the same, just like he loved her.
Draco slept soundly for the rest of the night, only waking up when the sun poured in through his window and onto his face. The warmth spread over his skin, and he stretched as the night before began to come back to him. Suddenly remembering everything all at once, he whipped his head to the other side of the bed, her side, only to find it empty.
No. No no no.
Draco leapt out of bed, not bothering to get dressed, and ran to the bathroom. She wasn’t there. He checked the living room and the kitchen next, nothing.
Only once he made his way back into the bedroom did he see the note on the nightstand next to her side of the bed. Draco sucked in a breath and sat down, picking up and unfolding the note.
“Draco,
My life is a mess right now, I don’t know who I am anymore, I lost so much of myself to the war. Maybe someday I’ll get some of it back, or maybe I’ll become someone new, someone better. I don’t know who I am, or how to find it, and most days I don’t even know what day of the week it is, but I do know two things. They say you must fully love yourself before you can truly love another, and as I write this in your bathroom while you sleep in the next room, I can’t even bring myself to look in the mirror, and if I’m being honest, I haven’t been able to look in the mirror in years. You deserve someone who isn’t a blackhole of need, someone that can care for you just as much as you care for them, and we both know that’s not me, and I can’t promise it ever will be. I also know that the times I have spent with you over the last six months, have been the brightest moments for me, in years of total darkness. Our moments are like stars in a dark sky, and I will cherish them forever.
Someone is out there for you, someone who isn’t broken, someone who will love you, someone you can love without the responsibility of penance.
I need you to know what happened that night is not your fault, in anyway, and I never thought it was. I hereby free you from any and all guilt associated with that night. Go forth and live.
Take care of yourself, and please don’t look for me.
Yours, if even just for a while,
Hermione Granger”
And then bye
Says the girl who doesn't have time for relationship advice
Rather relationships at all
I asked her "What's wrong?"
I asked her "What's wrong?"
And she said
And she said, she said