SwedishA/N: So, here we are. Thank you reviewers, you're so supportive! And forgive me Dramione shippers for I have sinned, there are no Yule Balls or Marriage Laws here. It's just me, crossing the lines, laws, love and of course fanon. This chapter was tricky for me to produce with all the things happening around me, I'm not quite satisfied yet but do review and give me feedback!
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Chapter five:
Not Alone
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I had this wonderful dream. I was a princess running around in a manor, dressed in a white, light summer dress with flowers in my hair. Laughing and dancing between amours and portraits of pale royalty carelessly, almost floating made me feel bliss. I was beautiful, or so I was told by the voice behind me. You glow like a veela. You're as fascinating as the sun. I twirled around to face the man who told me these things. There was the permanent person in my most secret dreams, glowing somewhere in the dark and I watched him approach me, dressed in white and small strays of hair falling into his deep grays. You're loved. You're adored.
"It's morning," a familiar voice behind me growled. I must've groaned because the growl turned into a silky smooth tone. "You got to get up; you have that thing you talked about today."
I stopped twirling and dancing in my dream but the keys of the piano didn't stop and neither did he. He walked towards me calmly and I knew this part of this dream, I've dreamed this dream since he captured me in the library. You're not alone. You'll never be. I knew that he was going to approach me slowly, with a murderous pace and I was going to stand there with my summer dress floating just waiting for him to come close enough.
"Hermione," the voice called, silky smooth and purring chanted somewhere in reality.
There are a thousand flowers in your hair. He was inches away from me now, plucking flowers from my hair and handing me them one by one until he placed the last one, a white one, on his lips, kissing it softly and placed it behind my ear. There were so many flowers and there was so little time for him because I was brutally awoken. Stay here because all I want is to dance with you. I nodded and handed him my hand. He grabbed it carefully and spun me in the manor to a melody that seemed to be created as time went. Hermione. I asked him if we could stay here forever because we were together here and not alone. Hermione, Hermione. His voice chanting my name like that wasn't a part of my regular dream but I couldn't care less because he accepted my offer to stay forever and dipped me, making my flower drop to the floor and I knew that when he drew me up he was going to kiss me. Hermione, Hermione, Hermione.
"Let me finish my dream, Ron!" I yelled in the dark, sleep drunken and mad because I missed out on the best part.
I felt movement behind me and a lot of activity under the sheets and finally two feet touched the stone floor, ready to leave the room. The same voice, silky smooth and purring, just like in my most sacred and hidden dreams spoke.
"Go back to the Weasel in your dreams, Granger," he said, with coldness and ice that didn't belong there or was long forgotten. "This is not real."
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"I'm sorry for yesterday."
"Save it."
"It's a habit."
"I'm sure it is."
"Are you going to be angry for all eternity?"
"I don't even care, Hermione."
"I'm sorry."
"Save your breath."
Draco was blank, cold and all the adjectives of heatless that there is but who could blame him? He might've thought that I fantasized about Ron every time I kissed him (that only happened once) but the truth looked different. I've heard him whisper those words to me a couple of night ago, I love you. I love you, and they stayed in my head. I love you too, I murmured in my dreams but I couldn't tell him that. It took me over eight years to say it to Ron and here he was, storming into my life in fancy dress robes, twisted smiles and dreamlike kisses, begging me to spill my heart out but I couldn't.
"If you only knew, Draco," I muttered and let my fingers trail across the different books in the library where he had all of our more serious talks. Despite the location I wasn't ready to share my heart or my thoughts, not yet.
"Knew what, Hermione?" Draco asked somewhere across the room, tone chilly. "This thing we started, it's not everything there is to consider."
"Consider?" I snapped but I couldn't bear looking at him. "I'm not some kind of business proposal."
"Really? How do you think being with you makes me look? " Draco retorted, mocking my reasoning with a coldness that sent chills through my body. "You're a lawyer, Potters best friend, a defeater of the Dark Lord and on top of that a mu –"
"Don't – "I interrupted before he could call me the M word. "Don't even say what you were thinking. I thought you were different but you're just like them."
I could feel Draco glaring at me during a painful pause.
"We had fun," Draco started and changed the direction of the conversation and his voice completely. I dared to look at him finally and regretted it instantly. He looked guarding and unnatural now, his eyes were darker and his fists clenched. I could've sworn that the same darkness I once spotted in Harry's eyes during the fifth year were flashing through Draco, if only for a second, before his lips curved into a twisted and bad smile. With a dry, aristocratic voice that made the whole room cold he spoke, "Especially for me, shagging Weasels girlfriend was extremely rewarding."
If felt like he poured a bucket of ice-cold water over me, I knew somewhere deep in that we were a lie but those words, those three little words. . . Without thinking, a trademark that belonged to anyone besides me, I started yelling. "Ron is more than you'll ever be, Malfoy, you're just an rotten Death Eater who sits in your manor all day without even carrying to live. Nobody cares about you!"
"That filthy word," Draco hissed with dark eyes, completely ignoring or not even thinking of answering to my words. "That's what you expected me to call you, right? I thought you knew that I was innocent."
"Me being that, Isn't that one of all the flaws with this business proposal?" I hissed back, hurt and furious and very unwilling to answer any questions he asks. "Are any Malfoy's even remotely close to having human feelings or does darkness lain in your genes?"
"I know I was wrong thinking that you were a good lawyer, it doesn't matter if the court declared me innocent. I'll always be Draco Malfoy to you, the rich little dark brat who doesn't feel," Draco shouted for a change, face shifting in different tones of red and states of anger. "It's all a lie, a game, a case or an educational experiment or even a bloody fight for you so it has to be for me too, admit it."
I stopped and realized that it was exactly what I thought.
"I love you," Draco added, staring coldly at me and I was astounded by his honesty. He told me, straight out without any kind of safeties or grand gestures to back his words out. They were there and they spoke his truth, with or without me saying it back. "There you have it, the miserable truth, now get the hell out of my life, mudblood."
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Draco,
I am so sorry, but you should be sorry too! I know I was wrong but we have communication problems, not that I say we like in that we should be a 'we'. We could be a 'we' if you want to. I think that we have so much to talk about and I know that I did wrong (again) and I can't even write you anything proper and I've written too much now haven't I. Merlin, I wrote that too. Well, I'm not sending this letter.
The rest became a mess of inkblots and suppressed tears that found their way out. It does not do to dwell in dreams, Dumbledore once said (bless his soul) but somehow I preferred the dwell where we did twirling and kissing rather than this game I won and lost. I couldn't come over the fact that that I had somehow managed to have my dreams fulfilled and loose them in matters of words, cruel, vicious and hurting words. He called me, he said . . . we were hurting and words are so cruel.
I watched the letter of catastrophe, lies did look good in fresh parchment but the truth looked weak, blurry and needy. I rewrote it, with firmness and precise formulation.
Draco,
We have matters do discuss.
Love and us to be more accurate.
2 P.M sharp, you know where.
Hermione.
I was ready to hand my life to the loony ministry owl I brought back from work to nurse. There was no spill of the matters of the heart, nor the unnecessary dialogue in which I told him that I needed him and wanted him. I left the feelings in the other note where inkblots and tears were smudging my otherwise clean slate.
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I watched my muggle clock with huge fascination today.
1.59. Okay, Any minute now. I returned to my papers but couldn't hold my focus. I looked up again and kept my eyes on it. 2.01. Okay, so he's a bit late. He'll be here. 2.04. Okay, so he's really late, very tacky. 2.06. No, he's never late. 2 A.M sharp is 2 A.M sharp. 2.08. Where is he? 2.09. The Knight Bus might've hit him. 2.10. Serves him right for being this late. 2.13. Draco? 2.16. He's not coming, is he? He's not coming at all. 2.18. Where did all the air go?
I was poise; I was poise breaking down in a corner in her office trying to figure out where all the air went. No, I was more than poise; I was Hermione Granger not just thinking that her glued heart was broken but knowing that it was. It's when you're all alone that tears that almost fall hurt the most, especially if they're almost shed on the behalf of Draco sodding Malfoy.
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It's strategically better to eat alone and manage to cram in work, much and tons of work so you never get the time to think of things. That's how I managed to survive the dark ages, especially when it came to the worries I dealt with when it came to all the difficult tasks me and Harry and Ron. . . and Ron had to overcome. There is nothing like hiding behind pages where stories are more substantial than your own but tonight books couldn't save me. It had been a week now without a word from him, no, Malfoy, and truth be told I needed someone, I needed Harry.
With home-charmed pudding in my left hand, my wand in my right and a plastered smile across my I Apparated to the familiar home of Harry and Ginny to get hugged and loved and reminded that I wasn't alone. I knocked and waited.
"Hello," Ron said to greet me when he opened Harry and Ginny's door. I stared at him. He stared at me. Needless to say that we stood there, staring as hexed trolls. His blue eyes looked calm and kind, his robes were sewed to fit his long, built body, his large hands were holding a steady grip of the door knob and the wind that blew past me made the red hair that shifted in everything from dark red to light orange blow backwards so effortlessly.
"You don't live here," I managed to squeeze out after analyzing the last freckle on Ron's nose. "Where are Harry and Ginny?"
"At the Doctor, Ginny felt ill, nothing major," Ron explained shortly but added, "Is that your charmed pudding?" while suppressing the urge of stealing it from my grip.
"Okay, yes, it is," I said and offered him the pudding without thinking twice. I was still startled by meeting Ron when I was expecting Harry. And Ginny.
He kindly accepted my pudding and said, "You make one of the best charmed puddings there is."
"Who dares to compete with your mother?" I asked him harshly and crossed my arms, ready to fight him any second (without knowing why really).
Ron beamed. The careless joy that only Ron produced was filling every vein in my body, "You're a close second, Hermione, come in."
With those words he let me into the house of Harry and Ginny, invited me to share their food, rooms and entertainment without rethinking the ownership. While we laughed at anecdotes from the past (and almost spoiling ourselves hazardously with the Butterbeer we knew Harry hid under the sink) I was once again reminded of why I fell for Ron Weasley.
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"Hey, Hermione," Ron said, entering through my office door half past one.
I smiled at the sight of the familiar face in my office. "Hey, Ron."
"Up for tonight?" Ron asked, innocently. We were going over to Harry and Ginny's for the fourth night since we clashed into each other there. As friends of course, we were just hanging out and talking and Ron Apparated to my door with me every night to make sure I was safe because we were just friends.
"Of course," I said, happily. "I'll bring the pudding," I added as a joke.
"Ginny will swallow the whole thing. Hey, speaking of hungry Weasleys, want to grab something for late lunch?" Ron asked kindly and I saw his ears turn scarlet. "Uhm, if you're done here I mean."
"Oh," I observed him carefully and then the muggle watch behind him, twenty nine minutes left to two. . . "I can't right now sorry."
There is still someone I'm expecting, and papers that need to be attended to, and there is still hope.
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Nights are worst because I wake up in cold sweat, haunted by dreams of kisses I once had.
"Draco," is the first of names I mutter in my sleep and I let my hands try to find his familiar body in my own sheets. His lines and the feel of cold and warmth and forbidden sensations were nowhere to be found. "Draco," I repeat while slowly falling into the world where my imaginations are more vivid than this bitter reality.
You're not alone. You'll never be. I dream him saying in the manor were we're spinning in. There are a thousand flowers in your hair. He whispers softly as he plucks them as expected and kisses the last one tenderly. Stay here. He begs while I offer him my hand. Because all I want is to dance with you.
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"Are you okay?"
It was Ron who asked but Ginny, Harry and little James was looking at me with the same expression as Ron had when I came back from my half sleep, half misery in the Potters living room couch.
"I'm fine," I replied but I wasn't. I couldn't sleep because there were manors and spinning Draco's and flowers in my hair.
"You dozed off," Ron said, stating the obvious. Of course I did when I hadn't slept for a good week without waking up, agonized.
Harry was always the one of those two who understood me the best. "Perhaps you should take her home, Ron, she needs to sleep."
"Yeah, its James bedtime too," Ginny added sympathetically despite the fact that James bright, brown eyes looked awake and curiously at me.
"Yeah, I better be going," I said and stood up to thank the three Potters with kisses and hugs.
"I better follow," Ron said and copied my goodbyes (minus the awkwardly manly hug he gave Harry).
We Apparated on the spot with linked fingers and risen wands. When the world formed itself again we found ourselves standing outside a half shabby, blue door that was the entrance to my apartment. This was the awkward part, standing in front of my door, as friends and saying goodbye as friends.
"Your door," Ron said and pointed towards my blue door.
"It seems to be my door, yes," I stated and did a silly nudge towards my blue door.
"Right, you better go inside," Ron told me and staring at his shoes.
I hesitated a while before I murmured, "You should follow me in," to my apartment keys.
"I should," Ron said and gave me a soft kiss so close to my lips that I felt tricked.
He turned around and Apparated with a crack! I didn't expect him to follow me in, because in the end of the day I was going to sit and wait for someone to come back to me and he was going to wait for me to come back to him.
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"Oh, Harry," I said in joy and embraced my friend tightly. He had been knocking on my apartment door to see how I was holding up, typical Harry and to give me some bad news. These 'bad news' made me jump with joy and hug him with no plants of letting go.
"You're killing me," Harry let out, followed by a smooth chuckle. "That would've been a first."
"Oh, don't joke about those things," I ranted but I refused to let him go from my tight hug.
"I know you, you're not heartless, I don't understand why the death of your poor owl brings you this much joy," Harry said and little sneeze followed by a muffled laughter, my hair was probably tickling his nose.
"Because it's all a misunderstanding, he never got it delivered, he loves me, he'll forgive me and I will forgive him back," I explained, more to myself than to Harry. The loony owl had managed to get itself killed during the flight (bless the feathered soul) and the Auror department had found it during a raid in a nearby warehouse. That's why he never showed up, that's why he is sitting in his manor just waiting for me to come.
Because he said I love you and he needs me to say it too. "He loves me," I let out.
"Your owl?" Harry said, gasping for air somewhere behind my left ear.
"Yeah, my owl," I murmured, joyfully.
"Okay, but Hermione, you should let me go," Harry said but judging by his body language he didn't mind the extra long hug I gave, the fact that he still needed those extras made me sad and appreciative.
Laughing I told facts of life to my best friend. "I wouldn't let you go for the world Harry."
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"Draco," I banged at his door."Draco, open the door!"
Almost immediately the door flung open, none of the locks clicked or the charms were murmured, it was like he was expecting me, or someone else. Everything I was going to tell him changed now. He was dressed in a black suit with his blond hair carefully placed back as usual and his eyes were sharp, paralyzing and dimming my mind. I was reminded once again of how beautiful he was with his poise, elegance and careless expressions.
"Granger," Draco said as greeting phrase. "I recall the moment when I told you to get the hell out of my life, you should too."
"Enough with the small talk Malfoy, I came here to talk," I started.
"It's been weeks since we last talked, why now?" Draco demanded.
"I wrote you, two days after, but the owl died," I explained while fingering the details on the front door.
"And the Hippogriff ate my homework," Draco said sarcastically but he looked like he was genuinely interested. "You should get a hawk, I know a great place."
How this conversation went from me trying to talk about things to hawk shopping I don't know but I changed the conversation immediately, "I don't need a hawk, I need you and me to be okay again."
Draco looked quite baffled by my choice of words. "I called you . . . you know."
"And I said that you're a rotten, you know," I defended. "We were both being . . . bad. That's why I came to talk because you said . . . those words, and I wanted to know if they were true."
"Those words?" Draco started but paused when he realized what I was talking about. The pink dots that appeared were not fitting in his otherwise cocky expression. "Right, those, does it matter?"
"It does, because I came here," And I paused because my heart was pounding somewhere outside my head. "I came here to say," I started again but before I uttered another word to my explanation I noticed that his eyes shifted from me to the manors entrance and I turned my head around to see what caught his eye.
I threw up a bit; a platinum blond woman with a slick, black dress appeared out of nowhere and she walked towards us with such a sway and self-confidence that I felt small.
"Who is she?" I demanded, outraged. She was breathtaking, gorgeous and her bosom seemed to jump up and down for every step she took but not in that slutty way as Lavender did it, no, this was a natural gift and she had some kind of elegance that I rarely see. I've seen it once and it was in Draco.
"No one," Draco lied but his eyes wavered between her and me for a while before he settled to stare at me, "Why are you here, Hermione, tell me."
"You – You, I hate you," I told Draco before the beautiful blonde came to ear shot. "I came here to declare my hate for you!"
"No, you didn't," Draco acknowledged but when she was close enough to us to hear I watched him transform.
"Hey," she purred and placed a feather light kiss on Draco's cheek. I know that kiss, its seduction.
He has a small smile across his lips when she was done and his tone was turning to the dry, cold Malfoy tone I grew to hate during my Hogwarts years, "Hello," he said to her but his eyes were on me and they looked disconnected from the world.
I stood there, like a moron until she turned around from fingering on Draco's collar to present herself. "Astoria Greengrass," she said and reached out her polished hand to shake mine. I felt unworthy all the sudden as I grabbed her hand and shook it.
"Hermione Granger," I said with emphasis on my name. Hermione Granger the war hero, the intelligent one, the famous lawyer and the easy tricked woman who happened to fall for your date.
"Oh," She said and shot me a shy smile, not obnoxious or hate filled but shy and almost, almost unsecure. "We should go, Draco, but I need to powder my nose," Astoria exclaimed when turning back to fingering Draco's collar. "I'll leave you to discuss your juridical matters with your lawyer. I'll find my way."
She went behind Draco and into the manor, leaving me with the double-crossing Draco Malfoy. I know that I was his lawyer but that wasn't everything I was. Was it? But how would she know? She was Astoria Greengrass and she found her way in the huge manor. She found her way and Draco let her found her high heeled way.
"How long?" was the only question of all the thousands I could ask, somehow everything clicked.
"A while –," Draco started, giving me a pair of eyes that tried to talk but there was nothing in them that I wanted to hear. When he noticed my narrowing eyes he retorted with the most awful line. "It's not what you think – ".
"It's exactly what I think," I hissed. "It explains everything, the messy hair and underwear that night I came knocking, the sterilized furniture . . . you never lo –, you never saw anything, did you?"
"You're extremely stupid for being intelligent, perhaps Weasel deserves you then. You're the only thing of worth he'll ever get anyways." Draco snapped, furious. "I'm doing you a favor because unlike you I know that we are temporarily. Move on."
"We didn't even start so don't try to be all heroic and carrying," I interrupted. "And you're the one in love enough to tell me!"
"And you aren't?" Draco asked. He called my bluff instantly, causing me to feel exposed. I glared at him only to see the same insecurity that I saw in the preparation room before his destiny was going to be settled. He waited for a verdict but I was still contemplating the evidence that were supporting his wish to let him free, to let him hear me say that I loved him.
Our silence was interrupted by the sound of a pair of high heels against hard surface and the determined voice of Draco pretending that everything was okay, "If you want the papers by tomorrow I'll bring them to you, your office."
I came back to reality and was reminded once again that I was so angry, with him and the world. "Save yourself the Apparation," I hissed and turned around to leave him and her in an instance.
I walked, so determined and ready to curse everything around me and I waited for him to call back for me, or even stupefy me but he didn't. 'You're not looking back', I thought to myself but I did after chanting those words in my head because I couldn't help myself. When I did look back I saw the patina blondes lips locked onto each other impatiently and then a heavy door, his door, closed behind them.
It was over as the locks clicked somewhere behind me and he staggered with her up for the stairs, kissing her like he once kissed me. These were the truths all along.
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"Ron," I cried as I banged his door, I did a lot of door banging these days. "Ron, I know you're awake."
Nothing.
"Ron," I pleaded as I felt my knees bend under me. "Please, Ron, Please."
Nothing.
"Ron, open the door, I don't want to be alone," I whispered. There's no him, there's no Harry without Ron and . . . "I – please open."
Ron opened his apartment door, only to find me on the floor, tear striped and devastated.
"Hermione, you're crying," Ron acknowledged, shock in his voice.
"I – I," I started. "I needed you," I heard myself say without knowing it. It has always been Ron. Hasn't it?
"Shh," Ron said and sat down on the floor and held me tightly. "I'm here."
"Stay here," I begged, chocking more than pronouncing correctly. "Please stay."
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Ron stayed; for two months now he stayed by me and I fell, not hard or recklessly or even stupidly in love but comfortably. He loved me and I loved him and it was easy. We were Ron&Hermione, Hermione&Ron and when he said I love you there were words with no undertone nor suppressed love/hate. I loved him dearly but I couldn't explain a few things. Like the crying I did more often nowadays, the hunger feeling I lost and the sense of despair I felt every time I wasn't with him, or anybody for that matter.
"You're the safe bet," I whispered every night as I kissed his forehead before lying next to him to sleep. 'You're the right bet and the stakes are high, you're the safe bet and I hate losing' I told myself every night in my head and I try to sleep next to him as quickly as possible. Every waking minute is a wait for the night where I fall in to the world of dreams, the same kind of dreams where kisses have sounds, flowers are in thousands and he is sweeping me off my feet.
When Ron rolls over and places an arm over my hip, unknowingly of his movement in his sleep, I feel the dream slipping.
I woke back up to a reality where the freckled redhead is wrapped around me. I turned a little to the left, a little to the right, rolled over to face him and gave up when I laid flat on my stomach. It didn't quite fit, not perfectly and we were broken and torn but Ron stayed here with his arm around me, like always, and I was not alone.
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SWEDISHA/N: OKAY! So daysandweeks five chapter challenge in its entire honor, without it this fic wouldn't be born. I started out, wanting to do a cannon compliant Dramione Fic (oops, sorry readers!) but I'm falling in love with Dramione and the conflict inside of me is not good!
Sadly/happily I'll need at least a sixth chapter/epilogue damnit but I'm not sure that the parts of the possible Ep I've written will do Crossing Lines justice. So tell me! Is it really 'COMPLETE'? Is it really/should it really end like this. . . What do you say? ALL UP FOR AN EPILOUGE SAY I!
Yours confusingly,
Lumos!