Broken Mirror

xoXOXox

Harry watched her sleep, peacefully, completely on her own. Curled on her side, one hand under her head and the other stretched out holding the blanket, she looked just like he remembered her before the pain, before the war, before Bellatrix LeStrange. Her skin was smooth without a single frown of pain, the ever-present lines between her eyes gone as if they never existed. Though she was pale from the rigors of the ritual, there was a calm to her that he had almost entirely forgotten about. She was whole and safe and beautiful. 

“How’s she doin’, mate?”

It took effort to pull his eyes from Hermione to look at his other best friend. Ron was almost the exact opposite. The pain and sorrow he seemed to carry with him was noticeable in the lack of light in his eyes, the way his shoulders drooped, and his hands hung limp at his side. It ached to see one of the people he loved the most healing while the other was once again falling to pieces.

“Sleeping for once. Mrs. Malfoy said that she would probably sleep through the night and a good bit of the morning but that she should be as stable as she is going to get without training with her darker magic. How are you doing?”

Ron sighed, eyes dropping to his feet as he slid his hands in his pockets.

“I hurt, Harry. I didn’t think it would hurt this much but it does.”

Harry paused as he started to speak as Ron held up his hand.

“It’s okay, Harry. We were told there would be ups and downs for a while to come. This isn’t anything I wasn’t expecting. Just the subject of it. I’ll be alright with time. You two going to be okay tonight?”

Harry moved to stand in front of Ron, reaching out to lay his hand on his shoulder.

“Should be. Why?”

Ron met his eyes and gave him a slight smile.

“I was invited to a party in the tower. Thought it might do me some good to get out of this room and be around other people for a little while. If you and Hermione need me though…”

Harry shook his head, pulling Ron into a hug with a chuckle.

“Go. Have fun. Let some of the darkness fade. I plan to turn in myself. I’m exhausted. We will survive the night, I think. Tell the Gryffs we said hello, yeah?”

Ron nodded, taking one last look at Hermione before he turned and left the room. Harry didn’t know if it would help or not, but he hoped against all odds that the lack of seriousness of the party would prove useful in lightening Ron’s mind and heart. Moving to kiss Hermione’s head, he stretched out on the other side of the bed, eyes glued to her until they became too heavy to keep open. Tomorrow was a new day and with it would be the Hermione that made it to the other side. He couldn’t wait to meet her.

Draco watched as Weasley quietly moved across the common room for the door. He looked torn apart, but his strides were that of a determined man. Wherever Weasley was headed, he was going to get there. Draco hoped he found what he was looking for. He had enough confusion about his feelings towards the boy who protected him and the muggle born who was now basically his sister. He wasn’t sure this ‘hero’ business of trying to save everyone was for him. It was utterly exhausting.

The gentle tap of bare feet had him looking over his shoulder to see Pansy staring the way Weasley went.

“Where is he going this late at night?”

Draco couldn’t decide between his sadness at seeing her so lost and his anger at her question. He tried to settle somewhere in the middle but wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“Why do you care? He is beneath your notice now, remember?”

He watched her flinch, and the guilt ate at his insides, but they had been soft with her the entire war. Maybe it was time she faced some hard truths about herself. He had learned months ago that was the only way to truly start healing.

“I never said that!”

Draco turned fully, forcing her to meet his eyes before he spoke.

“Sure you did, Pans. In every move you’ve made. In your silence and your refusal to even acknowledge his presence by looking at him. You wanted him to feel your wrath for his supposed betrayal and now he has. If I had to guess, it has something to do with that Brown chit pulling him aside after lunch today.”

He watched her eyes grow shiny with tears and he swallowed back the urge to comfort her. She made this bed. It was time she lay in it.

“Shit, Pans, what did you think was going to happen? He forced the ugly truth of what you were doing out because he gave a fuck about you. He cared that you were hurting yourself. He didn’t want to see you die. That’s more than I can say for anyone else outside our little band of snakes. He laid his heart out there, knowing what the price might be, for you. And you did exactly what they all expected from you. You may have lost the ability to hide everything behind a mask since the war but you haven’t lost the ability to cut someone to the bone with your eyes alone.”

He stood, moving to her until they were barely touching, the warmth of her body covering the chill he had started to feel sitting out here alone in the dark.

“All our lives you have told us you wanted a wizard who would look at you and see you. Not the perfect doll your mother tried to create but the insecure, broken, needy woman who just wanted to be loved for more than her looks or her inheritance. You wanted a wizard that would protect you from everyone and everything, who put you first. One who would hold you even when you were raving mad and still love you come morning.”

Cupping her face, he forced her eyes up to his and let the sharp truth cut her open.

“That man. That wizard just walked out the door towards another witch because you let that pureblood pride, we were all taught, to rule your actions. When you should have been grabbing for him, you shoved him into a world of silence and anger. I don’t know what you expected, Pans, but I figured six years of examples would have taught you by now that you reap what you sow.”

Leaning down, he kissed her forehead gently as the first muffled sob fell from her lips.

“I still love you but as we have all started to learn the hard way, it’s time to grow out of childish notions and actions. Goodnight, Pans.”

With one last kiss to her head, Draco moved around her and headed for Granger’s room. He wanted to check on her one more time before he went to sleep himself.

Pansy stood frozen, staring at the door as Draco walked away. She couldn’t stop his words from running on repeat in her mind. She had done this. She had chased away the first wizard to look at her and care about her as a person, not as an object to own, besides her three best friends. Drake was right. It was hard to swallow, old habits dying a screaming death in her chest. Ron Weasley, the most unworthy pureblood in her family’s eyes. Someone she would never have even thought twice about before the war. Someone she couldn’t stop thinking about now that it was over. 

Her stomach rolled and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. But he wouldn’t want that. He did all of this, took her spite and her silence and her pain to help her get well. She wouldn’t disregard that now by letting her issue overtake her. Hanging her head, she turned to go back to her room when something Draco said rang louder than the rest.

‘It’s time to grow out of childish notions and actions.’

What had she always done growing up? She had buried her head in the sand, given up when she didn’t think she had a fighting chance. With her father and her mother. With her aunts and uncles. To the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. She had even, in her terror, tried to give up the boy who would save them all. She was a coward. A weak, sniffling, stuck up pureblood coward. 

But she wasn’t a child anymore.

Not giving herself time to panic, to talk herself out of it, Pansy sprinted to the door and out into the hall. It hadn’t been that long. He couldn’t have gotten far. Running in the direction of the stairs that would take him to the Gryffindor tower, Pansy prayed she would catch him before it was too late. She had to. This couldn’t be the end. Not for her one chance to get everything she always wished for. Not before it even began.

Barreling down the hallway with not a shred of her dignity or pride intact, Pansy stumbled as she rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of red shining only a short distance from her.

“Ron!”

Her voice echoed off the walls as the wizard she was chasing turned around in surprise. She could see the sorrow she had etched onto his face. The way it pulled his otherwise strong, tall frame down like chains around his neck. She had done that. For a moment her courage, her recklessness abandoned her as she stared at him.

“Pansy, what are you doing out here with no shoes on? It’s blighted cold.”

And there it was. Her proof. She had hurt him, broken something inside him and still his only care was for her. Body and mind in complete agreement, she took off once more, hair streaming around her face as she watched his eyes widen in confused shock. He must have seen her intention because he braced himself just as she flung her entire body into his at full speed. His arms wrapped around her to cushion the collison, not once stumbling back but holding steady as she wrapped herself around.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t go. I’m sorry.”

Her words ran over themselves as she clung to him the way she was never allowed to cling to anyone else. Even in the privacy of their rooms, her and her friends had never allowed themselves to let go for fear of someone walking in and catching them. But now, she had nothing left to fear. She had already lost everything in her life. Everything but him and she needed him to know before that was gone too.

It felt like forever that she continued to mumble her apologies through her tears, his body silent and still against hers. Just when she thought all hope was lost, his arms tightened around her, one hand threading into her hair as the other gripped her sleep shirt. Lifting her head so she could apologize, this time while looking at him, her words stuck in her chest as his lips came down to claim hers. 

The cry that tore from her lips was one of a soul reborn as she leaned into the kiss, dragging her own hands into his hair, nails scoring across his neck and back, anywhere she could reach as he kissed her as if she was the very reason he lived. This, Salazar, this is what she had been searching for her whole life. Loyalty, protection, understanding, and forgiveness. All here, wrapped up in the one wizard her entire upbringing shunned. 

She lost herself to him, to his lips and his hands, until the need for a real breath forced them apart. His breathing matched hers, both sounding as if they had been running for hours. His hands gentled as they ran through her hair then up to cup her face.

“I’m so sorry, Ron. I’m an idiot. A spiteful, brainless, stuck up, insufferable witch.”

His smile warmed her down to her toes as he chuckled.

“But you're my spiteful, brainless, stuck up, insufferable witch and I’ll thank you not to talk about my witch that way, yeah?”

The laugh that fell from her lips broke something inside of her that felt like it floated away. Some foreign darkness that no longer belonged lodged behind her heart.

“Yeah. I think I can manage that.”

He kissed her softly once more before moving to the side to lift her easily into his arms.

“And you are out here in your night clothes and no Godric be damned shoes on. Let’s get you back to the common room before you catch a cold out here.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder as he started his way back to their dorm.

“Can you forgive me?”

His words were whispered against her ear as he hugged her impossibly closer.

“Always, Pansy.”

Tears flowed up into her eyes and out again as she settled safely in his arms and let him do what she had always wanted someone to do for her, care enough to hold on to her no matter what.

Always, Pansy.

Those words would forever be the turning point for her and she knew it. 

xoXOXox