Hermione Granger X Draco Malfoy / Chance encounter
Draco has been there too many times.
On the sofas of murky clubs with smokey dance floors.
Watched his friends throw away all they hold dear come three o'clock.
When Blaise finds yet another girl to kiss. Pansy wraps her hands around another neck.
Theo throws back another shot.
He leaves.
As always.
Through the thick smoke wall, footsteps heavy as the dropping bass.
Draco lifts up the collars of his jacket.
Pushes his hands to pockets and walks out to the cold breeze of January.
He could apparate.
But he doesn't
He always walks.
You meet no people if you apparate.
Maybe it's fool's hope,
but somehow he hopes that someday — Someday on his gloomy walk home he'd meet someone as lonely as him.
It's stupid.
Who finds true love on a three am walk home?
Someone bumps against his shoulder
"I'm terribly sorry."
He flips to look at the stranger in the pale city lights.
A petite figure,
hood over their head,
A couple stray curls peaking out.
And he knows who it is.
"Granger?"
She stops and turns to him, moving her big hood to see better, "Malfoy?"
A chance encounter of two strangers.
Almost.
He could ask how she is here.
And she could question if he's the one she's been looking for.
If he's the one who makes her get up the bed in the middle of Saturday night and go for a walk through the city?
But they don't
Instead he asks, "walk with me?"
She nods.
Because they both know the other is there for a reason.
At the end, they barely need words.
Barely require apologies or explanations.
Like the loneliness they share taught them language they never knew before.
Snowflakes dance in the air.
And the smoke of their breaths tangles together as they walk.
The world dissolves
and rebuilds into something where promises are forever,
nothing happens by chance
And she never leaves.