I miss you
She picked up the pace, stepping quickly down the hall away from the pale eyes watching her from across the room. If she could just make it to the loo, she could gather herself into some semblance of normalcy and figure out how to get out of here. It wasn’t as if anyone would care about her absence–she’d been here for a couple hours already and done her rounds of the Leaky Cauldron to greet her former classmates for their 10-year reunion. She thought she’d get to rest easy, and that he wouldn’t show up. Drinks and pub food seemed below him, anyways.
But then the bell at the door jingled and a shiver ran up her spine, and she knew. Draco Malfoy had arrived.
A glance at the entrance confirmed her fears with a shock of perfectly styled white-blonde hair towering over the crowd. Hermione ducked down, ignoring the amused looks around her, and darted along the wall as if in the middle of one of the D.M.L.E. exercises. Low. Fast.
She forgot they usually disillusioned themselves. She also was not an auror. And though Hermione ran almost daily, she was no covert agent.
Her pathing towards the hallway was seen by the very person she most wanted to avoid, and after murmuring greetings and apologies to his friends, he went on the hunt. After all, he trained with Harry regularly, and he knew what he was doing.
Just as she reached the doorway and placed her hand on the door knob, a hand landed atop her own, silver ring glinting in the half light.
“Granger.”
Her spine stiffened at the contact and that damn voice that always melted her defenses and sent her spiraling. She tried to twist around and yank her hand down, but he pressed her into the door, preventing her escape. She refused to give him the satisfaction of eye contact and stared resolutely at the wood grain.
“What do you want, Malfoy?”
In response, he twisted their hold on the door to open it, his other hand firmly gripping her hip and pulling her inside with him. He spun her around to face him, but still she kept her gaze down, fixating instead on the tension of his chest muscles underneath his perfectly pressed shirt. He smelled just like she remembered, all smoke and spice and impulsive acts.
“You. I miss you.”
She scoffed. “You have a funny way of showing it. You didn’t stop me from leaving last time.”
“You didn’t exactly give me a choice.”
“And that’s changed?”
His silence was answer enough.
Now she looked up, meeting his beautiful eyes with her own, and he blanched at the sight of her pain, evident through the fury. Her eyes watered, but the tears stayed back with the force of her clenched jaw. She glared at him, and he didn’t need legilimency to read her thoughts. The longer he drank in her face, eyes roaming the lips he had kissed often, the brow he stroked, the jaw he nibbled, the neck he left his mark on again and again, the less he wanted to let her go. There were a million and one reasons why he should, but they now paled in comparison to the emptiness she left in her wake or the sense of belonging he felt with her in his arms. He knew this, but still the words refused to make themselves known.
“Draco, you can’t keep doing this to me.” She choked in her effort to hold back the sobs, shoving her free hand against his chest in a vain attempt to push herself free.
Her struggle seemed to give him the fuel he needed to give in to his original impulse, and he tightened his hold. Just one last taste. He could let her go on these terms.
But as he started his descent, angling his head in that familiar motion, Hermione muttered a stinging hex through her palm straight into his torso. His arms dropped with the curse, and she spun for the door like a thoroughbred from the starting gate, legs kicking into overdrive. The door slammed behind her and she hustled her way towards the exit.
“Hermione! Leaving already?” Neville snagged her attention just as she reached for the handle, and she graced him a short smile.
“Yeah, I’m knackered and need to get up early in the morning.”
“Give Ron our best. We missed seeing him tonight!”
A scream clawed its way up her throat, threatening to make itself known to the entire pub. “I will. Thanks, Neville.”
With another hug and wave, she was free, bursting out into the cool air. She had a sick redhead back home to nurse back to health in the house they’d bought together several years prior. She’d only come tonight at his encouragement, and now she wished she’d left after that first hour.
The sharp crack still echoed in the air as Draco emerged from the Leaky. Rubbing his chest where the reminder of her rejection still lingered, he stared at the space where she last stood. Just like then, she left and he remained. Loneliness gripped at the hollow where his heart should have been, sinking claws into every available organ and squeezing the blood out of him.
He removed his signet ring and stared at the family crest, a decision forming into an undeniable truth. Closing his fist around his new sense of purpose, he disapparated with a soft pop.