Fic: Falling Is Like This. D/Hr. 15+
I submitted this as a back-up for dmhgficexchange a couple of weeks ago, and figured it was about time I posted it in my journal. Also, what is really rude? Not saying 'thank you' to someone who writes your fic exchange request for you.
TITLE: Falling is like this.
AUTHOR: kataclysmic
EMAIL: geektragedy@gmail.com
FANDOM: Harry Potter. Draco/Hermione.
DISCLAIMER: Somebody else's sandbox.
RATING: 15+
SUMMARY: Their eyes were locked, unflinching, and she recognised something in those cool, grey depths that she saw in the mirror most mornings.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Massive thanks to not_collins and arabella_hope for the invaluable help and encouragement. You guys are absolute stars.
--
War had left her sensitive and easily riled when it came to noise, to busy and crowded areas. She had spent years, when barely more than a child, fighting alongside her friends in darkened, claustrophobic corridors, tripping over the fallen, and battling for her own life. It had left her delicate in the face of masses of people. Too many bodies crowding her reminded her of the rush when students fled Hogwarts, pushing against her as her fought her way in with her two best friends.
Now she was careful to avoid the masses. She worked in a quiet office at the Ministry, and shopped at a twenty-four hour supermarket at three in the morning to avoid bustling shoppers. Her Christmas purchases were made early on weekday mornings in August, knowing the precincts and boutiques would be near empty compared with the frantic December crowds she vaguely remembered from her adolescence. She rarely shared her bed with men, but on the occasions that she did she would flinch if they attempted to hold her afterwards. She craved open spaces, and even her three bedroom flat felt oppressive at times. She wanted a huge house and a large, sprawling garden, but settled instead for the quietness of a nearby park during twilight hours.
At thirty-two, Hermione Granger wondered if she should be coping better by now. She'd grown accustomed to the same methods of evading the crowds that she employed at nineteen, only weeks after the deaths of George and Colin and Hannah and so many of her schoolmates and friends. Children of the post-war baby boom were now entering Hogwarts, and illustrations of Harry's long gone scar were studied in their Defence Against The Dark Arts lessons. The world had moved on, but she remained fearful of it.
The evenings she spent sat at the beach, when the temperamental English weather would allow, were her solitudes. The beach was large, and the sprawling vastness of the sea before her was calming, an emptiness that spread out in front of her her, close and open. Her usual bench was old and worn, and sat close to the pier. During the early evening the area would usually be comfortably deserted.
It was unseasonably warm for April, but a chill assaulted her as she read in the Prophet of an old schoolmate who had fallen into a coma in the US. She felt saddened, someone she had never really known, and now, someone she was unlikely to ever know. Her reflection lasted only a moment, and when she looked up from the paper, she was startled as she recognised a figure strolling down the pier in front of her.
Hermione's breath hitched at the sight of the unmistakable figure of Draco Malfoy across from her.
She was shocked - she'd not seen, nor even thought of him, in years. He had fled Hogwarts over a decade ago, and no one had heard from him since, despite sightings of him everywhere from the Middle East to New York. When Snape had returned to the Order and been hesitantly pardoned, hated by most but devoted to their cause, he had not spoken of the boy he had saved from becoming a murderer. Some speculated he had been killed by Voldemort, others that he had assumed his father's seat at Voldemort's right hand, always hidden behind a white, faceless mask when confronting the enemy. But while she had always thought him nasty and conniving, she'd never thought him a killer.
On the beach, neither of them made a move, nor looked away. She was spellbound by the memories his presence pounded her with, and he looked to be similarly disconcerted. Their eyes were locked, unflinching, and she recognised something in those cool, grey depths that she saw in the mirror most mornings.
Then, a cool wind fingered through her hair, whipping it around her face and when she looked back at him after brushing it out of her eyes he was gone, and the whole beach empty.
--
The reappearance of Draco Malfoy was not something she mentioned to anybody. Rationally, she realised he could offer a threat; nobody ever knew if he had truly supported Voldemort, and his return could quite easily spell trouble. Yet emotionally, her heart shuddered for him, and in his eyes she knew she saw a sadness that rivalled her own.
She didn't see anything more of him in the following months. A hot sun melted away spring into summer, and she considered her silent exchange in the park so much that she began to wonder if it was anything more than a mirage, a console to herself that she was not the only one still in mourning. Still, when Draco appeared to her again, she was not surprised.
He approached from behind, and she almost flinched at his nearness. He stood to her left, behind the bench. Hermione couldn't see him, but recognised him all the same. When he spoke, his voice was gravellier than she remembered from her final year at school, and he sported an accent she couldn't quite place. “I haven't spotted my name in the papers, so I assume you've not told Potter or anybody you saw me.”
She felt movement behind her. He wasn't touching, but closer. Her spine twitched but she remained facing forward. “I couldn't be sure that it was you...” she faltered.
“Bullshit,” he countered. There was that accent again, the slightly out of place vernacular. She wondered if he'd been hiding abroad. “You knew it was me, Granger. You've always been a sharp one.”
“A compliment?” she asked with a shrill laugh. “Now I surely can't believe that it's you.”
“Come on, Granger,” he cajoled. “It's been over a decade, can't we at least be civil?”
Silently, she remembered a time when once she was civil with him, or as near to civil as the two of them ever had been. It was sixth year, and she was young and foolish and trying to prove to herself that Ron Weasley kissing Lavender Brown meant nothing. And of course it did, but there's no denying that Draco Malfoy had been a wonderful kisser, and she had even counselled herself with the fact that the groping in the first floor girl's toilets was all a case of subterfuge to find out what he was getting up to. He never said 'no' because sixteen year old boys rarely did, even if she have dirty parentage, and the two of them only stopped at her behest when Ron broke up with Lavender and she began to feel guilty and dirty, and wondered if the feelings she was experiencing weren't a little too deep, and if his eyes were saying something entirely different to his mouth when he told her to 'piss off'.
When, after moments lost in memories, she turned to reply, the man behind her was gone, and she was left alone, solitary, as she liked it.
--
The next time he appeared he sat next to her. She remained facing forward, and neglected to so much as look at him throughout their entire conversation. She was not in the least surprised that he had come to her again.
“Hello Malfoy,” she greeted him quietly. She felt his eyes on her, but she defiantly studied the rippling water before them.
“Still not told anyone you've seen me, then?”
“Don't worry; everybody still thinks you're off gallivanting.”
“It's for the best,” he assured her.
“Why?”
“For you. It just is.”
She accepted this silently, unsure why she should trust him, but not compelled to question it.
A quiet rustling, and an electrical hiss in the air alerted her to an oncoming apparation. “Draco, you should probably go -” she turned, warning him, but he was already gone.
Then, Harry Potter appeared to her with a quiet 'pop', and he looked at her with a concerned expression crossing his now unremarkable features. “Hermione,” he greeted her. “Your therapist just flooed me. She says you've been missing appointments.”
“It's alright, Harry,” she assured him.
“Hermione, if the war... if it is still bothering you, you know you should talk about it... you don't want the nightmares, the hallucinations to start again...” Harry sat next to Hermione on the bench, where Draco had been.
“Harry,” Hermione sighed, and edged away from him on the bench. “I'll be fine. Stop worrying.”
--
Two days later, Hermione had just gotten back to her flat after an uncomfortably claustrophobic and busy day at work. Jumping slightly, she swore she heard a knock on her front door. It startled her, but she made her way through the hallway; it was not often she received visitors, and when she did, they usually apparated.
She was only half-surprised when she opened the door to reveal Draco standing beneath the cobwebbed ceiling of her hallway. He smirked at her immediately, and she ushered him in. Opposite her, her elderly neighbour was putting out empty milk bottles. She smiled fondly at Hermione, muttering, “I bet you imagine you hear all sorts in that empty flat of yours. You should get a cat... scare the ghosts away.”
Hermione quirked an eyebrow at Jean's odd remark, but didn't comment on it - she felt terrible, but in the last few weeks, Jean had been making increasingly peculiar remarks, and Hermione wondered if age was catching up with the old woman.
Hermione retreated back into her flat, following Draco to the living room where he sat, helping himself to her glass of wine.
“This wine is too dry,” he remarked, setting it down on the table next to where she sat.
“Yes,” she concurred. “I thought so too. Still, what are you doing here? I didn't know you knew-”
“Where you lived?” he finished. “'Course I do, it's me.”
He was all bravado and swagger, exactly how she remembered him from school, but nothing like Harry had described of their final encounter.
“But what are you doing here?” Hermione pressed, reaching again for her glass of wine. “I mean, if you're laying low, it's not really conducive to spend time in a flat where Harry Potter is known to visit, is it?”
Draco shrugged, and stalked towards her. “I just thought you might need the company. Potter's not really around much these days, and I can always make myself scarce.”
Hermione laughed slightly. “Jean, my next door neighbour, thinks I should get a cat. Keep me company.”
“You wouldn't need me then, would you?”
Hermione decided then, not to get a cat.
--
Hermione found herself not minding in the least as Draco comfortably inserted himself into her life, drifting in and out of her days, but never offering her a reason why. She tried not to question him too much, despite it being her nature. She was glad of a companionship that didn't set her teeth on edge, or make her spine twitch. Being with him, to her, was as comfortable as being alone.
At work, he would come to her with a simple glamour in place and offer her the odd mug of coffee or tea. She often remarked to him for as long as he kept her talking and wasting her time, she could have easily popped to Starbucks and bought a drink herself, and be no worse off.
Still, if it gave her a chance to spend more time with him, she appreciated it.
Alone, at home, she quizzed him. Where have you been all these years? she repeatedly asked. How did you support yourself? Did you love? Marry? Why did you come home now?
He was closed off. Answered only the questions she could guess the answers to anyway, and then left her with more questions than were answered.
He migrated from her life whenever her friends invaded, inviting her to quiet evenings out and small get-togethers. She never invited him, and he never asked to join her.
Most nights, Draco slept on her sofa. On the rare evenings they didn't spend time together he told her he spent the evenings in the nicer hotels of the city. When she asked about the manor he grew up in, he told her it was up for sale, and didn't offer a reason why. By this point, Hermione had learnt it easier not to ask. He would never give her a proper reply, and would often disappear if she asked too many questions he didn't want to answer.
He was a butterfly, flitting into her flat or office every time she had a spare moment, inserting himself like cement between the bricks of her life that slotted uncomfortably together. He knew what to say when she was low, when she was angry, and when she was placated enough, he knew how to make her laugh - something she had long thought impossible.
It was inevitable then, that Hermione felt something in her begin to stir, something she thought long dead, buried with her friends, her future and her innocence. Their fingers would brush as they sat together watching television, and Hermione would feel a flutter inside, a twitch deep between her legs. She found herself wanting him, craving his flesh like she had no other in years.
--
“You're like a squirrel,” he told her one evening, his voice low and calm against her jittering nerves and the storm outside warring against her window.
Screwing up her nose, she looked at him in bafflement. “I beg your pardon.”
The corned of his mouth jerked up, raising into a smirk, and a huffed out a little breath of laughter. “Look at you; you're constantly on edge, and -” the arm that had been resting around her shoulders lifted, and she shifted against him as he moved his hand against her head, brushing back her hair, “you've got the bushy mane.”
“Squirrels have bushy tails, not manes. You're nuts,” she told him, pronouncedly.
“Look at you; nuts on the brain, just like a squirrel,” he said, still smirking.
She laughed at him, but didn't say another word - scared that the wrong word at the wrong moment would make him shift against her again, and she'd lose the hand fingering her hair and cupping the back of her neck.
--
She felt like she was seventeen years old all over again, rediscovering sex and lust and longing. And him - Oh, how she remembered stolen moments in Myrtle's bathroom, pushing against him in dusty corridors and hating herself and wanting him. He was perfect and evil and made her hips quiver under his fingers. But now - now - she wanted him all over again, wanted him touching her, making her writhe and moan. It was a foreign concept to a woman who had shied away from intimacy and contact for years, but, oddly, it didn't feel like a strange or foreign want. Draco Malfoy still felt distant, but his smile and cool fingers and sharp voice were all too distinct to be a mirage or glamour.
But it wasn't the hesitant crush of her teenage years, full of the angst of wondering if the attraction was mutual because Hermione just knew how much he wanted her, as if the longing of his touch was in her fingers as well as his own. Still, it took half a bottle of wine each, and hours spent watching a suitably depressing and erotic muggle film before they dared kiss, and when they did, it was still hesitant, like Hermione wasn't sure he was even there, like he might disappear at any given moment.
His touch grounded her; his lips were hot against hers, and his tongue slipping into her mouth made her shudder against the nothingness between them, before he pressed closer to her, drawing her against his body. The kiss tasted like the memory of everything that came before it, the name-calling and fights and other kisses, and the crazy-bitter memory of the first time she saw him in the park for just an instant. She wanted to tell herself this wasn't real, because if this was Draco Malfoy, she wasn't the woman she wanted to grow up to be. There was another reason why, but when he sucked on her bottom lip she melted into him and forgot herself.
They fell into the bedroom in a lust-induced panic, and Hermione thought it a wonder they didn't trip over each other's feet in the haste of it all. And then she was falling and flying and lost in the feel of him.
--
Hermione didn't introduce Draco to any of her colleagues, nor did she mention his re-emergence in her life to any of her small group of friends.
It was better that way, he told her, and she believed him.
His constant serenity and air of calm was soothing nerves she thought frayed beyond repair. His voice, when he spoke to her, was soft, throaty, working its way down her back like the best kind of massage and easing out the kinks in her body; even when he wasn't around, she was beginning to feel better about herself and the world around her. Still, she relished the time he was around, rousing her from a sleep she'd barely known she slumbered in.
Her body had felt in limbo, an unfeeling vessel for her crumbling mind, but his explosive touch galvanised her body into feeling. Want erupted inside of her, longing and desperate. Hot, frantic hands, urging his body against hers; lips furious and wet, kissing slowly sometimes, bruising and fast others, but always, always wanting.
“I want to watch you touch yourself,” he told her one evening, his voice low and thick, catching on his tongue, and sending a spike of want straight through her cunt.
This was not unusual, but every time he asked her touch herself, bring herself off in front of him, it became no less erotic. His eyes would glow fiercely as he watched her, and under his gaze she would writhe and moan as much as when he would touch with hands and cock and mouth.
--
Some nights, pressing down against her in bed, Draco's eyes looked too dark, or his lips too full, or his shoulders too broad. Some nights, as she rode him hard, his hair looked too short against the pillow, his cock felt longer inside of her, his hands felt tighter on her hips. Half drunk on his presence, half of the time, Hermione barely remembered falling into bed with him, or how they had spent their evenings; all she knew was the incredible feel of him against her, bringing her off, coming inside her, night after night. Every time felt new, like he was learning her all over again, and she learnt new things of his body every night too.
--
Hermione placed a mug of tea on the coffee table, and clutched at her own mug of coffee and she settled down opposite Harry. He'd dropped by, unannounced, and thankfully Draco had apparated out of the room at the exact moment Harry appeared, sparing her from any awkward re-introductions and explanations. Harry had talked about the weather, about work, the Olympics, before finally clumsily working out to Hermione's relationship status, or lack thereof, in his opinion.
“Hermione, we know you like your space, but we - I mean, me and Ginny were thinking, well, you don't really go out much - and you've not been seeing someone...” Harry began, clasping his hands as her perched on the edge of the sofa.
“I'm not interested Harry,” she told him, voice firm, defiant. She sounded more like herself than she had in ten years.
Harry persisted, “Well, maybe you need to meet someone to, y'know, get interested.”
Hermione huffed, and rolled her eyes at him. He was a good man - a great man, even - but sometimes he was too much of a do-gooder for his own good; having finally found a happiness of his own in Ginny and their small family, he seemed desperate to spread the cheer.
“C'mon, being alone all the time isn't good for you. I mean, you've got me and Ginny and Ron and everyone, but not someone for you.”
Hermione quirked an eyebrow as he dug himself into a hole, and yet continued to persist. She'd made it quite clear, on occasions before and after Draco's appearance in her life, that she was happy as she was, and didn't need to go looking for love - and then it occurred to her - “You want to set me up with someone, don't you?”
Harry's cheeks coloured quickly. For all his lack of subtlety, Hermione quite thought he should have learnt not to embarrass so easily after all of these years.
“Well?”
Harry pressed his lips together, moved to stand up, and then settled back down. Clearly, this was not how he had intended the conversation to go. “I was just speaking to Justin the other day, and you know how he's always liked you-”
“Harry,” she burst out, protesting, “I haven't spoken to him in years!”
“Well, now's your chance to get to know him again.”
“No, Harry. Absolutely not,” she told him, resolutely crossing her arms across her chest.
“Well maybe someone else then,” Harry tried.
“No.”
Harry paused, eyeing her closely. Hermione felt herself grow uncomfortable under his close scrutiny in the same manner that standing in a crowded room made her feel jumpy.
“Is this about Ron?”
“What? God, no. Harry, I fancied him when I was twelve - that was twenty years ago!”
“Well I just thought... well, you've always been close, and he didn't seem to think this was a good idea either -”
“-that's because it's not-”
“- and, c'mon Hermione, it's not like there's any other reason...” he trailed off, shrugging, and collapsed back into the sofa. He blinked owlishly at her from behind his glasses, and for a moment he reminded her of his thirteen-year-old self when she tried to explain complex arithmancy to him that he could never grasp.
Hermione considered telling him about Draco, knowing she couldn't keep the former Slytherin's presence in her life a secret from her friends forever, but at the same time, the idea of confessing their relationship filled her with a sick dread, the weight of the idea pressing heavily against her stomach and chest.
Harry had always been supportive of her over the years, from her wavering mental health to her career. He had been there for the break-downs, and ferried her to and from the therapist's office when she was too low and too scared to manage it herself; he had been the one stable figure in her life when she had been unable to decipher reality from hallucinations. And yet, there was this. Draco. He and Harry had never gotten along, and Hermione doubted they would now that she had - now that she and Draco were seeing each other. The sick niggle she felt at the idea of telling Harry about their relationship was a result of this, but still it didn't help her decide whether she should confess to him.
“Hermione?” Harry prompted, and Hermione realised she had fallen silent.
“I'm fine, Harry.”
--
The warm spring in which Hermione first encountered Draco rolled into an even warmer summer; the heat was heavy, close, and when they took evening strolls along the beach, Hermione refused the arm Draco offered her, insisting it was just too hot to touch, and so they meandered along the beach in a companionable silence, not touching, not talking, and still, his very nearness comforted her, even after all the weeks that'd passed.
To Hermione, it felt as if Draco had rebuilt her, put her together again as a healthy person, absolute and whole - something Hermione had never thought herself capable of, with the aid of another person, and certainly not on her own.
--
“I love your stomach,” Draco told her, as he sat beside her on the sofa. Hermione laughed softly, and he slid down her body until his head rested on her belly, and his body lay along the length of the sofa.
“Why, of all the bits of me you seem rather fond of, is my belly your favourite?” She puffed out her stomach quickly, a little full from dinner, and his head lolled against her, and brushed against her breast as she slouched beneath him.
“Oh, don't get me wrong, I love all of your bits, and your bum is fantastic, but right now, I'm quite fond of your belly.” He tilted his head, and placed tiny kisses on the expanse of flesh between where her blouse ended, and skirt began.
“Tsshsh,” she chastised, in a half-laugh exhalation of breath. “You're crazy.”
The truth was, at sixteen - in the few moments between school and the war that she had time to actually be a girl - it was her hips she hated, her breasts, her legs, her bum. Her stomach had remained quite flat, and that had been the one part of herself she'd been comfortable with. Draco complimenting her, loving her, made her feel sixteen again, sometimes, like she didn't have a care in the world.
--
Harry continued to push, to prod and fret, and drop by unannounced, with Ginny or Neville or Ron is tow. Somehow, their visits never coincided with Draco's, and Hermione thought that was somewhat of an achievement.
“I bumped into Anthony Goldstein the other day, d'you remember him, Hermione?” Harry mentioned, one afternoon. This time, it was just the two of them.
“Oh Harry, stop it. I'm not going to go on a date with one of these guys you just happen to bump into.”
Harry pushed - a suggestion too much, a question too far, and Hermione snapped. The well of fear that'd lodged in her throat, stopping her from confessing her relationship with Draco, broke, and she confessed, her words tumbling out in a tearful rush of guilt and sickened fear.
“Malfoy?” Harry repeated, watching her carefully. To Hermione, he seemed remarkably composed, if only a little concerned, that she'd been sleeping with his childhood nemesis for five months. “Draco Malfoy?”
“Do you know any other 'Draco's?” Hermione asked, her breath hitching beneath tearful sobs.
Harry's eyes narrowed, and a frown settled on his forehead before he crossed the lounge and settled down next to her. “Look, Hermione...”
“Harry, I know you don't like him, but-”
“No,” Harry said, sternly, before resting a hand over her own, and squeezing in reassurance. “Have you been seeing your therapist? Taking your meds?”
Hermione eyes narrowed, unsure where he was going. Surely he wanted to talk about Draco? “No, I've been feeling better. Oh, don't tell Doctor Leddy, she'll only fuss, and I'm feeling better, honestly.”
“Oh Hermione,” Harry whispered, his voice low, sad. “Malfoy's in Seattle, in the US. In a coma.”
Hermione's eyes grew wide, frantic, as she felt a panic rise in her chest, chasing her breath from her lungs. “What? I saw him this morning and he's fine... did he apparate? Was there an accident?”
“No, Hermione. He's been in a coma for months - he was hurt during the war and never properly recovered; it was in the Prophet.”
“I'm not crazy, Harry,” she told him, with an absolute clarity of voice. “He was here, he spoke to me and touched - he was real.”
Something hot, strange and painful washed over her, pin-pricking at the back of her mind, and made her heart slam heavily in her chest. She struggled for breath, trying to comprehend the enormity of Harry's words.
“Sshhh,” Harry said, trying to soothe her. He wrapped an arm round her, gently rocking her shaking form. “I know you thought you were getting better, doing well... but he's not here, he's not real.”
Reality started to shift and she felt something inside her sicken as she remembered first seeing Draco at the beach; how she'd tightly clutched the paper in her fingers as she fought against the wind... the article she read before she'd looked up and seen him and -
“Oh God, Harry, no. He's real, he's real... he was here, I touched him.” She cried against him, great, shuddering sobs wracking through her body as she worked through the incredible notion that the man she had spent the last five months with simply did not exist.
It hurt impossibly, a painful ache that shattered her entire being in a way she could not have comprehended before. The war had been painful, to love and to lose people, but this - it was a heartbreak she couldn't begin to describe or deal with. Memories broke down in her mind - mornings, afternoons, days and nights spent with Draco, how she had touched him, felt him against her, laughed with him... how it had all been a strange kind of nothing in her mind. More psychotic walls, hallucinations and break-downs.
She felt herself sliding, the walls of her apartment and the feel of Harry's arms around her losing their focus. Small portions of her mind, still rational after years of abuse, called for her to calm down and listen to Harry's desperate pleas, while the rest of her psyche shouted and raged, drowning out her friend's worried words. Inside, her heart screamed, while her voice ran itself hoarse, sobbing for all she was worth.
Eventually, she tired herself out, and collapsed, sobbing against the figure she barely recognised; she was confused and hurting to a point she could hardly remember why she was crying, only that she felt an enormous loss in her heart, a loneliness in her mind like she had never known.
--
Days later she woke, groggy and disorientated. Her mind felt locked in a damp fog; her thoughts and her memories muted. She yawned, her mouth cottony, as if she hadn't had a drink for days, and she moved to wipe her hand across her mouth before finding herself restrained: her wrists and ankles magically bound to the bed. A bed that definitely wasn't her bed, in a room she didn't recognise.
“Draco?” she whispered, her voice hoarse and sore.
“He's not here, Hermione.” Someone to her left spoke, and she turned stiffly to find Harry and Ron at her bedside.
“Ron?”
“You're in hospital, Hermione,” her childhood friend told her, his own voice tired, and thick with worry. “Harry took you to St. Mungoes, and you were transported to America - one of the best magical neuro-psychiatric doctors in the wizarding world has been working on your case.”
Her last meeting with Harry sped through her mind, but it was hazy, as if she was watching an old film, or through a damaged pensieve; she felt none of the rage or torment that she remembered, and she realised she must be sedated.
“You were catatonic, Hermione. I didn't know what to do,” Harry continued, filling in the gaps in her mind from when she had collapsed to the present. “You were heavily sedated until you were docile enough to be transported, the guy we brought you to is the very best in his field, and then Ron and me came with you to Seattle-”
“Seattle?” she interrupted, something in her mind triggering back to the newspaper all those months ago. “Is Draco..? Is he here?”
Harry nodded solemnly.
“He's not - Hermione, Harry told me what happened, and he's not, well, he's not the man you kn- the man you thought you knew. He wasn't real,” Ron told her, and though his tone was kind, the words felt brutal, bruising reminders of what might have been. “The real Draco Malfoy is this sickly, moaning twat two wards away.”
Hermione's forehead wrinkled in confusion, then, in understanding as Harry delivered a swift kick to Ron's ankle. “He's awake?”
“Hermione, he's not the man you-”
“Is he awake?” she asked sharply, the fog of her mind and mouth clearing as hope began to flutter frantically in her chest.
Harry nodded again, biting his lip. “He's awake. He woke up the same hour you collapsed...”
--
Doctor Shepherd allowed her to visit Draco only after a fortnight of extensive tests and talks with a psychiatrist, and under the condition that Harry and Ron wait outside of his private room, and she remain under magical mental monitoring at all times.
Frankly, she was surprised; she knew she wanted this - to see him, however he may be - but she hadn't honestly expected to be allowed to see him so soon, and unsupervised. She felt more lucid and rational than she had in months - perhaps years - and though this was largely potion induced, she felt more aware, and more herself. That she was still desperate to see him - this man who was the source of months of hallucinations - was something she thought herself not quite ready to dwell on.
Nothing had been said about the times of his coma and her episode being almost identical, and she had not pushed the issue. Her friends and doctors had said time and time again about her good progress, and she did not want them to worry about her should she appear to be obsessing about him - or, the version of him that she had imagined.
“You don't have to do this, Hermione,” Ron told her, as he walked her through the private ward Draco was on.
She turned to him, and Harry, smiling tightly. “Yes, I do,” she told them firmly, before slipping into the room marked 'Malfoy, D.'.
He lay, pale and fragile looking on the bed, his complexion almost as fair as his hair. The last time Hermione had seen him - had thought she'd seen him - his face was flushed from orgasm, and his fine hair tousled and tangled.
“Granger?” he asked blearily, propping himself up against his pillow as she made her way into the room. “They said you were here, but I didn't think I was so unlucky that I'd fall into a coma and end up in the same place as you.”
“Nice to see you too, Malfoy,” she whispered faintly.
The slightest hint of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and he let out a little laugh. His cheeks coloured a little. “I'm kidding, Granger. But what are the odds, eh?”
Hermione gave the man on the bed a sly look, gaining her equilibrium at his relaxed tone. “I heard you were here too, and I thought I'd pop in and say hello... no one's seen or heard from you in years.”
Draco, seeming to regain colour and cheer by the second, raised a sardonic eyebrow. “We hardly parted on the best of terms. I was on the run, I'll have you know.”
Hermione smiled, feeling herself warming in his presence. So, he wasn't the man she had thought he was, but he was being civil - friendly, even - and she already felt the potential of friendship brimming through their banter. She smiled warmly at him, and settled down in the chair next to his bed.
“Did Harry tell you what was wrong with me?” she started, her confidence waning slightly as she approached the difficult subject. She needed to know where she stood with him - if he was aware she had effectively fallen in love with him.
“Potter mentioned you'd been hallucinating a bit - sort of a delayed post-traumatic stress, right?” he asked, and his voice held none of the disdain, the prejudice, that she had known of him years before. She wondered what had affected him so profoundly in fifteen years since she last actually saw him. He seemed so open and easy. “Bloody hell, you should have seen the state I was in before all of this happened; all these nasty curses and potions during the war made a right mess of my body and my brain; I was projecting all over the place at one point.”
“You're going to be okay now though, right?” she ventured, feeling her toes curl uneasily at the prospect of losing him again. She knew he was not the man she'd imagined, she completely understood how the struggles in her adult life had caused her to create a lover in the form of the memory of a childhood sweetheart, but she still felt an undeniable connection with the man in front of her.
“Yeah, yeah. Gonna make a full recovery. It's weird, actually, because they've no idea why I woke up. Apparently my brain-activity took a nose-dive one afternoon, which they were a bit worried about - understandably, really - and then a couple of hours later I woke up, fine.”
“Hmm,”she mused, wondering if this nosedive took place at the same time Harry had confronted her several weeks ago.
“Y'know Granger, I'm told you don't dream when you're in the sort of coma I was in, but it's the most peculiar thing; I dreamt of you... for months.”
-- finis.
soundtrack: Ani DiFranco, Snow Patrol.
TITLE: Falling is like this.
AUTHOR: kataclysmic
EMAIL: geektragedy@gmail.com
FANDOM: Harry Potter. Draco/Hermione.
DISCLAIMER: Somebody else's sandbox.
RATING: 15+
SUMMARY: Their eyes were locked, unflinching, and she recognised something in those cool, grey depths that she saw in the mirror most mornings.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Massive thanks to not_collins and arabella_hope for the invaluable help and encouragement. You guys are absolute stars.
--
War had left her sensitive and easily riled when it came to noise, to busy and crowded areas. She had spent years, when barely more than a child, fighting alongside her friends in darkened, claustrophobic corridors, tripping over the fallen, and battling for her own life. It had left her delicate in the face of masses of people. Too many bodies crowding her reminded her of the rush when students fled Hogwarts, pushing against her as her fought her way in with her two best friends.
Now she was careful to avoid the masses. She worked in a quiet office at the Ministry, and shopped at a twenty-four hour supermarket at three in the morning to avoid bustling shoppers. Her Christmas purchases were made early on weekday mornings in August, knowing the precincts and boutiques would be near empty compared with the frantic December crowds she vaguely remembered from her adolescence. She rarely shared her bed with men, but on the occasions that she did she would flinch if they attempted to hold her afterwards. She craved open spaces, and even her three bedroom flat felt oppressive at times. She wanted a huge house and a large, sprawling garden, but settled instead for the quietness of a nearby park during twilight hours.
At thirty-two, Hermione Granger wondered if she should be coping better by now. She'd grown accustomed to the same methods of evading the crowds that she employed at nineteen, only weeks after the deaths of George and Colin and Hannah and so many of her schoolmates and friends. Children of the post-war baby boom were now entering Hogwarts, and illustrations of Harry's long gone scar were studied in their Defence Against The Dark Arts lessons. The world had moved on, but she remained fearful of it.
The evenings she spent sat at the beach, when the temperamental English weather would allow, were her solitudes. The beach was large, and the sprawling vastness of the sea before her was calming, an emptiness that spread out in front of her her, close and open. Her usual bench was old and worn, and sat close to the pier. During the early evening the area would usually be comfortably deserted.
It was unseasonably warm for April, but a chill assaulted her as she read in the Prophet of an old schoolmate who had fallen into a coma in the US. She felt saddened, someone she had never really known, and now, someone she was unlikely to ever know. Her reflection lasted only a moment, and when she looked up from the paper, she was startled as she recognised a figure strolling down the pier in front of her.
Hermione's breath hitched at the sight of the unmistakable figure of Draco Malfoy across from her.
She was shocked - she'd not seen, nor even thought of him, in years. He had fled Hogwarts over a decade ago, and no one had heard from him since, despite sightings of him everywhere from the Middle East to New York. When Snape had returned to the Order and been hesitantly pardoned, hated by most but devoted to their cause, he had not spoken of the boy he had saved from becoming a murderer. Some speculated he had been killed by Voldemort, others that he had assumed his father's seat at Voldemort's right hand, always hidden behind a white, faceless mask when confronting the enemy. But while she had always thought him nasty and conniving, she'd never thought him a killer.
On the beach, neither of them made a move, nor looked away. She was spellbound by the memories his presence pounded her with, and he looked to be similarly disconcerted. Their eyes were locked, unflinching, and she recognised something in those cool, grey depths that she saw in the mirror most mornings.
Then, a cool wind fingered through her hair, whipping it around her face and when she looked back at him after brushing it out of her eyes he was gone, and the whole beach empty.
--
The reappearance of Draco Malfoy was not something she mentioned to anybody. Rationally, she realised he could offer a threat; nobody ever knew if he had truly supported Voldemort, and his return could quite easily spell trouble. Yet emotionally, her heart shuddered for him, and in his eyes she knew she saw a sadness that rivalled her own.
She didn't see anything more of him in the following months. A hot sun melted away spring into summer, and she considered her silent exchange in the park so much that she began to wonder if it was anything more than a mirage, a console to herself that she was not the only one still in mourning. Still, when Draco appeared to her again, she was not surprised.
He approached from behind, and she almost flinched at his nearness. He stood to her left, behind the bench. Hermione couldn't see him, but recognised him all the same. When he spoke, his voice was gravellier than she remembered from her final year at school, and he sported an accent she couldn't quite place. “I haven't spotted my name in the papers, so I assume you've not told Potter or anybody you saw me.”
She felt movement behind her. He wasn't touching, but closer. Her spine twitched but she remained facing forward. “I couldn't be sure that it was you...” she faltered.
“Bullshit,” he countered. There was that accent again, the slightly out of place vernacular. She wondered if he'd been hiding abroad. “You knew it was me, Granger. You've always been a sharp one.”
“A compliment?” she asked with a shrill laugh. “Now I surely can't believe that it's you.”
“Come on, Granger,” he cajoled. “It's been over a decade, can't we at least be civil?”
Silently, she remembered a time when once she was civil with him, or as near to civil as the two of them ever had been. It was sixth year, and she was young and foolish and trying to prove to herself that Ron Weasley kissing Lavender Brown meant nothing. And of course it did, but there's no denying that Draco Malfoy had been a wonderful kisser, and she had even counselled herself with the fact that the groping in the first floor girl's toilets was all a case of subterfuge to find out what he was getting up to. He never said 'no' because sixteen year old boys rarely did, even if she have dirty parentage, and the two of them only stopped at her behest when Ron broke up with Lavender and she began to feel guilty and dirty, and wondered if the feelings she was experiencing weren't a little too deep, and if his eyes were saying something entirely different to his mouth when he told her to 'piss off'.
When, after moments lost in memories, she turned to reply, the man behind her was gone, and she was left alone, solitary, as she liked it.
--
The next time he appeared he sat next to her. She remained facing forward, and neglected to so much as look at him throughout their entire conversation. She was not in the least surprised that he had come to her again.
“Hello Malfoy,” she greeted him quietly. She felt his eyes on her, but she defiantly studied the rippling water before them.
“Still not told anyone you've seen me, then?”
“Don't worry; everybody still thinks you're off gallivanting.”
“It's for the best,” he assured her.
“Why?”
“For you. It just is.”
She accepted this silently, unsure why she should trust him, but not compelled to question it.
A quiet rustling, and an electrical hiss in the air alerted her to an oncoming apparation. “Draco, you should probably go -” she turned, warning him, but he was already gone.
Then, Harry Potter appeared to her with a quiet 'pop', and he looked at her with a concerned expression crossing his now unremarkable features. “Hermione,” he greeted her. “Your therapist just flooed me. She says you've been missing appointments.”
“It's alright, Harry,” she assured him.
“Hermione, if the war... if it is still bothering you, you know you should talk about it... you don't want the nightmares, the hallucinations to start again...” Harry sat next to Hermione on the bench, where Draco had been.
“Harry,” Hermione sighed, and edged away from him on the bench. “I'll be fine. Stop worrying.”
--
Two days later, Hermione had just gotten back to her flat after an uncomfortably claustrophobic and busy day at work. Jumping slightly, she swore she heard a knock on her front door. It startled her, but she made her way through the hallway; it was not often she received visitors, and when she did, they usually apparated.
She was only half-surprised when she opened the door to reveal Draco standing beneath the cobwebbed ceiling of her hallway. He smirked at her immediately, and she ushered him in. Opposite her, her elderly neighbour was putting out empty milk bottles. She smiled fondly at Hermione, muttering, “I bet you imagine you hear all sorts in that empty flat of yours. You should get a cat... scare the ghosts away.”
Hermione quirked an eyebrow at Jean's odd remark, but didn't comment on it - she felt terrible, but in the last few weeks, Jean had been making increasingly peculiar remarks, and Hermione wondered if age was catching up with the old woman.
Hermione retreated back into her flat, following Draco to the living room where he sat, helping himself to her glass of wine.
“This wine is too dry,” he remarked, setting it down on the table next to where she sat.
“Yes,” she concurred. “I thought so too. Still, what are you doing here? I didn't know you knew-”
“Where you lived?” he finished. “'Course I do, it's me.”
He was all bravado and swagger, exactly how she remembered him from school, but nothing like Harry had described of their final encounter.
“But what are you doing here?” Hermione pressed, reaching again for her glass of wine. “I mean, if you're laying low, it's not really conducive to spend time in a flat where Harry Potter is known to visit, is it?”
Draco shrugged, and stalked towards her. “I just thought you might need the company. Potter's not really around much these days, and I can always make myself scarce.”
Hermione laughed slightly. “Jean, my next door neighbour, thinks I should get a cat. Keep me company.”
“You wouldn't need me then, would you?”
Hermione decided then, not to get a cat.
--
Hermione found herself not minding in the least as Draco comfortably inserted himself into her life, drifting in and out of her days, but never offering her a reason why. She tried not to question him too much, despite it being her nature. She was glad of a companionship that didn't set her teeth on edge, or make her spine twitch. Being with him, to her, was as comfortable as being alone.
At work, he would come to her with a simple glamour in place and offer her the odd mug of coffee or tea. She often remarked to him for as long as he kept her talking and wasting her time, she could have easily popped to Starbucks and bought a drink herself, and be no worse off.
Still, if it gave her a chance to spend more time with him, she appreciated it.
Alone, at home, she quizzed him. Where have you been all these years? she repeatedly asked. How did you support yourself? Did you love? Marry? Why did you come home now?
He was closed off. Answered only the questions she could guess the answers to anyway, and then left her with more questions than were answered.
He migrated from her life whenever her friends invaded, inviting her to quiet evenings out and small get-togethers. She never invited him, and he never asked to join her.
Most nights, Draco slept on her sofa. On the rare evenings they didn't spend time together he told her he spent the evenings in the nicer hotels of the city. When she asked about the manor he grew up in, he told her it was up for sale, and didn't offer a reason why. By this point, Hermione had learnt it easier not to ask. He would never give her a proper reply, and would often disappear if she asked too many questions he didn't want to answer.
He was a butterfly, flitting into her flat or office every time she had a spare moment, inserting himself like cement between the bricks of her life that slotted uncomfortably together. He knew what to say when she was low, when she was angry, and when she was placated enough, he knew how to make her laugh - something she had long thought impossible.
It was inevitable then, that Hermione felt something in her begin to stir, something she thought long dead, buried with her friends, her future and her innocence. Their fingers would brush as they sat together watching television, and Hermione would feel a flutter inside, a twitch deep between her legs. She found herself wanting him, craving his flesh like she had no other in years.
--
“You're like a squirrel,” he told her one evening, his voice low and calm against her jittering nerves and the storm outside warring against her window.
Screwing up her nose, she looked at him in bafflement. “I beg your pardon.”
The corned of his mouth jerked up, raising into a smirk, and a huffed out a little breath of laughter. “Look at you; you're constantly on edge, and -” the arm that had been resting around her shoulders lifted, and she shifted against him as he moved his hand against her head, brushing back her hair, “you've got the bushy mane.”
“Squirrels have bushy tails, not manes. You're nuts,” she told him, pronouncedly.
“Look at you; nuts on the brain, just like a squirrel,” he said, still smirking.
She laughed at him, but didn't say another word - scared that the wrong word at the wrong moment would make him shift against her again, and she'd lose the hand fingering her hair and cupping the back of her neck.
--
She felt like she was seventeen years old all over again, rediscovering sex and lust and longing. And him - Oh, how she remembered stolen moments in Myrtle's bathroom, pushing against him in dusty corridors and hating herself and wanting him. He was perfect and evil and made her hips quiver under his fingers. But now - now - she wanted him all over again, wanted him touching her, making her writhe and moan. It was a foreign concept to a woman who had shied away from intimacy and contact for years, but, oddly, it didn't feel like a strange or foreign want. Draco Malfoy still felt distant, but his smile and cool fingers and sharp voice were all too distinct to be a mirage or glamour.
But it wasn't the hesitant crush of her teenage years, full of the angst of wondering if the attraction was mutual because Hermione just knew how much he wanted her, as if the longing of his touch was in her fingers as well as his own. Still, it took half a bottle of wine each, and hours spent watching a suitably depressing and erotic muggle film before they dared kiss, and when they did, it was still hesitant, like Hermione wasn't sure he was even there, like he might disappear at any given moment.
His touch grounded her; his lips were hot against hers, and his tongue slipping into her mouth made her shudder against the nothingness between them, before he pressed closer to her, drawing her against his body. The kiss tasted like the memory of everything that came before it, the name-calling and fights and other kisses, and the crazy-bitter memory of the first time she saw him in the park for just an instant. She wanted to tell herself this wasn't real, because if this was Draco Malfoy, she wasn't the woman she wanted to grow up to be. There was another reason why, but when he sucked on her bottom lip she melted into him and forgot herself.
They fell into the bedroom in a lust-induced panic, and Hermione thought it a wonder they didn't trip over each other's feet in the haste of it all. And then she was falling and flying and lost in the feel of him.
--
Hermione didn't introduce Draco to any of her colleagues, nor did she mention his re-emergence in her life to any of her small group of friends.
It was better that way, he told her, and she believed him.
His constant serenity and air of calm was soothing nerves she thought frayed beyond repair. His voice, when he spoke to her, was soft, throaty, working its way down her back like the best kind of massage and easing out the kinks in her body; even when he wasn't around, she was beginning to feel better about herself and the world around her. Still, she relished the time he was around, rousing her from a sleep she'd barely known she slumbered in.
Her body had felt in limbo, an unfeeling vessel for her crumbling mind, but his explosive touch galvanised her body into feeling. Want erupted inside of her, longing and desperate. Hot, frantic hands, urging his body against hers; lips furious and wet, kissing slowly sometimes, bruising and fast others, but always, always wanting.
“I want to watch you touch yourself,” he told her one evening, his voice low and thick, catching on his tongue, and sending a spike of want straight through her cunt.
This was not unusual, but every time he asked her touch herself, bring herself off in front of him, it became no less erotic. His eyes would glow fiercely as he watched her, and under his gaze she would writhe and moan as much as when he would touch with hands and cock and mouth.
--
Some nights, pressing down against her in bed, Draco's eyes looked too dark, or his lips too full, or his shoulders too broad. Some nights, as she rode him hard, his hair looked too short against the pillow, his cock felt longer inside of her, his hands felt tighter on her hips. Half drunk on his presence, half of the time, Hermione barely remembered falling into bed with him, or how they had spent their evenings; all she knew was the incredible feel of him against her, bringing her off, coming inside her, night after night. Every time felt new, like he was learning her all over again, and she learnt new things of his body every night too.
--
Hermione placed a mug of tea on the coffee table, and clutched at her own mug of coffee and she settled down opposite Harry. He'd dropped by, unannounced, and thankfully Draco had apparated out of the room at the exact moment Harry appeared, sparing her from any awkward re-introductions and explanations. Harry had talked about the weather, about work, the Olympics, before finally clumsily working out to Hermione's relationship status, or lack thereof, in his opinion.
“Hermione, we know you like your space, but we - I mean, me and Ginny were thinking, well, you don't really go out much - and you've not been seeing someone...” Harry began, clasping his hands as her perched on the edge of the sofa.
“I'm not interested Harry,” she told him, voice firm, defiant. She sounded more like herself than she had in ten years.
Harry persisted, “Well, maybe you need to meet someone to, y'know, get interested.”
Hermione huffed, and rolled her eyes at him. He was a good man - a great man, even - but sometimes he was too much of a do-gooder for his own good; having finally found a happiness of his own in Ginny and their small family, he seemed desperate to spread the cheer.
“C'mon, being alone all the time isn't good for you. I mean, you've got me and Ginny and Ron and everyone, but not someone for you.”
Hermione quirked an eyebrow as he dug himself into a hole, and yet continued to persist. She'd made it quite clear, on occasions before and after Draco's appearance in her life, that she was happy as she was, and didn't need to go looking for love - and then it occurred to her - “You want to set me up with someone, don't you?”
Harry's cheeks coloured quickly. For all his lack of subtlety, Hermione quite thought he should have learnt not to embarrass so easily after all of these years.
“Well?”
Harry pressed his lips together, moved to stand up, and then settled back down. Clearly, this was not how he had intended the conversation to go. “I was just speaking to Justin the other day, and you know how he's always liked you-”
“Harry,” she burst out, protesting, “I haven't spoken to him in years!”
“Well, now's your chance to get to know him again.”
“No, Harry. Absolutely not,” she told him, resolutely crossing her arms across her chest.
“Well maybe someone else then,” Harry tried.
“No.”
Harry paused, eyeing her closely. Hermione felt herself grow uncomfortable under his close scrutiny in the same manner that standing in a crowded room made her feel jumpy.
“Is this about Ron?”
“What? God, no. Harry, I fancied him when I was twelve - that was twenty years ago!”
“Well I just thought... well, you've always been close, and he didn't seem to think this was a good idea either -”
“-that's because it's not-”
“- and, c'mon Hermione, it's not like there's any other reason...” he trailed off, shrugging, and collapsed back into the sofa. He blinked owlishly at her from behind his glasses, and for a moment he reminded her of his thirteen-year-old self when she tried to explain complex arithmancy to him that he could never grasp.
Hermione considered telling him about Draco, knowing she couldn't keep the former Slytherin's presence in her life a secret from her friends forever, but at the same time, the idea of confessing their relationship filled her with a sick dread, the weight of the idea pressing heavily against her stomach and chest.
Harry had always been supportive of her over the years, from her wavering mental health to her career. He had been there for the break-downs, and ferried her to and from the therapist's office when she was too low and too scared to manage it herself; he had been the one stable figure in her life when she had been unable to decipher reality from hallucinations. And yet, there was this. Draco. He and Harry had never gotten along, and Hermione doubted they would now that she had - now that she and Draco were seeing each other. The sick niggle she felt at the idea of telling Harry about their relationship was a result of this, but still it didn't help her decide whether she should confess to him.
“Hermione?” Harry prompted, and Hermione realised she had fallen silent.
“I'm fine, Harry.”
--
The warm spring in which Hermione first encountered Draco rolled into an even warmer summer; the heat was heavy, close, and when they took evening strolls along the beach, Hermione refused the arm Draco offered her, insisting it was just too hot to touch, and so they meandered along the beach in a companionable silence, not touching, not talking, and still, his very nearness comforted her, even after all the weeks that'd passed.
To Hermione, it felt as if Draco had rebuilt her, put her together again as a healthy person, absolute and whole - something Hermione had never thought herself capable of, with the aid of another person, and certainly not on her own.
--
“I love your stomach,” Draco told her, as he sat beside her on the sofa. Hermione laughed softly, and he slid down her body until his head rested on her belly, and his body lay along the length of the sofa.
“Why, of all the bits of me you seem rather fond of, is my belly your favourite?” She puffed out her stomach quickly, a little full from dinner, and his head lolled against her, and brushed against her breast as she slouched beneath him.
“Oh, don't get me wrong, I love all of your bits, and your bum is fantastic, but right now, I'm quite fond of your belly.” He tilted his head, and placed tiny kisses on the expanse of flesh between where her blouse ended, and skirt began.
“Tsshsh,” she chastised, in a half-laugh exhalation of breath. “You're crazy.”
The truth was, at sixteen - in the few moments between school and the war that she had time to actually be a girl - it was her hips she hated, her breasts, her legs, her bum. Her stomach had remained quite flat, and that had been the one part of herself she'd been comfortable with. Draco complimenting her, loving her, made her feel sixteen again, sometimes, like she didn't have a care in the world.
--
Harry continued to push, to prod and fret, and drop by unannounced, with Ginny or Neville or Ron is tow. Somehow, their visits never coincided with Draco's, and Hermione thought that was somewhat of an achievement.
“I bumped into Anthony Goldstein the other day, d'you remember him, Hermione?” Harry mentioned, one afternoon. This time, it was just the two of them.
“Oh Harry, stop it. I'm not going to go on a date with one of these guys you just happen to bump into.”
Harry pushed - a suggestion too much, a question too far, and Hermione snapped. The well of fear that'd lodged in her throat, stopping her from confessing her relationship with Draco, broke, and she confessed, her words tumbling out in a tearful rush of guilt and sickened fear.
“Malfoy?” Harry repeated, watching her carefully. To Hermione, he seemed remarkably composed, if only a little concerned, that she'd been sleeping with his childhood nemesis for five months. “Draco Malfoy?”
“Do you know any other 'Draco's?” Hermione asked, her breath hitching beneath tearful sobs.
Harry's eyes narrowed, and a frown settled on his forehead before he crossed the lounge and settled down next to her. “Look, Hermione...”
“Harry, I know you don't like him, but-”
“No,” Harry said, sternly, before resting a hand over her own, and squeezing in reassurance. “Have you been seeing your therapist? Taking your meds?”
Hermione eyes narrowed, unsure where he was going. Surely he wanted to talk about Draco? “No, I've been feeling better. Oh, don't tell Doctor Leddy, she'll only fuss, and I'm feeling better, honestly.”
“Oh Hermione,” Harry whispered, his voice low, sad. “Malfoy's in Seattle, in the US. In a coma.”
Hermione's eyes grew wide, frantic, as she felt a panic rise in her chest, chasing her breath from her lungs. “What? I saw him this morning and he's fine... did he apparate? Was there an accident?”
“No, Hermione. He's been in a coma for months - he was hurt during the war and never properly recovered; it was in the Prophet.”
“I'm not crazy, Harry,” she told him, with an absolute clarity of voice. “He was here, he spoke to me and touched - he was real.”
Something hot, strange and painful washed over her, pin-pricking at the back of her mind, and made her heart slam heavily in her chest. She struggled for breath, trying to comprehend the enormity of Harry's words.
“Sshhh,” Harry said, trying to soothe her. He wrapped an arm round her, gently rocking her shaking form. “I know you thought you were getting better, doing well... but he's not here, he's not real.”
Reality started to shift and she felt something inside her sicken as she remembered first seeing Draco at the beach; how she'd tightly clutched the paper in her fingers as she fought against the wind... the article she read before she'd looked up and seen him and -
“Oh God, Harry, no. He's real, he's real... he was here, I touched him.” She cried against him, great, shuddering sobs wracking through her body as she worked through the incredible notion that the man she had spent the last five months with simply did not exist.
It hurt impossibly, a painful ache that shattered her entire being in a way she could not have comprehended before. The war had been painful, to love and to lose people, but this - it was a heartbreak she couldn't begin to describe or deal with. Memories broke down in her mind - mornings, afternoons, days and nights spent with Draco, how she had touched him, felt him against her, laughed with him... how it had all been a strange kind of nothing in her mind. More psychotic walls, hallucinations and break-downs.
She felt herself sliding, the walls of her apartment and the feel of Harry's arms around her losing their focus. Small portions of her mind, still rational after years of abuse, called for her to calm down and listen to Harry's desperate pleas, while the rest of her psyche shouted and raged, drowning out her friend's worried words. Inside, her heart screamed, while her voice ran itself hoarse, sobbing for all she was worth.
Eventually, she tired herself out, and collapsed, sobbing against the figure she barely recognised; she was confused and hurting to a point she could hardly remember why she was crying, only that she felt an enormous loss in her heart, a loneliness in her mind like she had never known.
--
Days later she woke, groggy and disorientated. Her mind felt locked in a damp fog; her thoughts and her memories muted. She yawned, her mouth cottony, as if she hadn't had a drink for days, and she moved to wipe her hand across her mouth before finding herself restrained: her wrists and ankles magically bound to the bed. A bed that definitely wasn't her bed, in a room she didn't recognise.
“Draco?” she whispered, her voice hoarse and sore.
“He's not here, Hermione.” Someone to her left spoke, and she turned stiffly to find Harry and Ron at her bedside.
“Ron?”
“You're in hospital, Hermione,” her childhood friend told her, his own voice tired, and thick with worry. “Harry took you to St. Mungoes, and you were transported to America - one of the best magical neuro-psychiatric doctors in the wizarding world has been working on your case.”
Her last meeting with Harry sped through her mind, but it was hazy, as if she was watching an old film, or through a damaged pensieve; she felt none of the rage or torment that she remembered, and she realised she must be sedated.
“You were catatonic, Hermione. I didn't know what to do,” Harry continued, filling in the gaps in her mind from when she had collapsed to the present. “You were heavily sedated until you were docile enough to be transported, the guy we brought you to is the very best in his field, and then Ron and me came with you to Seattle-”
“Seattle?” she interrupted, something in her mind triggering back to the newspaper all those months ago. “Is Draco..? Is he here?”
Harry nodded solemnly.
“He's not - Hermione, Harry told me what happened, and he's not, well, he's not the man you kn- the man you thought you knew. He wasn't real,” Ron told her, and though his tone was kind, the words felt brutal, bruising reminders of what might have been. “The real Draco Malfoy is this sickly, moaning twat two wards away.”
Hermione's forehead wrinkled in confusion, then, in understanding as Harry delivered a swift kick to Ron's ankle. “He's awake?”
“Hermione, he's not the man you-”
“Is he awake?” she asked sharply, the fog of her mind and mouth clearing as hope began to flutter frantically in her chest.
Harry nodded again, biting his lip. “He's awake. He woke up the same hour you collapsed...”
--
Doctor Shepherd allowed her to visit Draco only after a fortnight of extensive tests and talks with a psychiatrist, and under the condition that Harry and Ron wait outside of his private room, and she remain under magical mental monitoring at all times.
Frankly, she was surprised; she knew she wanted this - to see him, however he may be - but she hadn't honestly expected to be allowed to see him so soon, and unsupervised. She felt more lucid and rational than she had in months - perhaps years - and though this was largely potion induced, she felt more aware, and more herself. That she was still desperate to see him - this man who was the source of months of hallucinations - was something she thought herself not quite ready to dwell on.
Nothing had been said about the times of his coma and her episode being almost identical, and she had not pushed the issue. Her friends and doctors had said time and time again about her good progress, and she did not want them to worry about her should she appear to be obsessing about him - or, the version of him that she had imagined.
“You don't have to do this, Hermione,” Ron told her, as he walked her through the private ward Draco was on.
She turned to him, and Harry, smiling tightly. “Yes, I do,” she told them firmly, before slipping into the room marked 'Malfoy, D.'.
He lay, pale and fragile looking on the bed, his complexion almost as fair as his hair. The last time Hermione had seen him - had thought she'd seen him - his face was flushed from orgasm, and his fine hair tousled and tangled.
“Granger?” he asked blearily, propping himself up against his pillow as she made her way into the room. “They said you were here, but I didn't think I was so unlucky that I'd fall into a coma and end up in the same place as you.”
“Nice to see you too, Malfoy,” she whispered faintly.
The slightest hint of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and he let out a little laugh. His cheeks coloured a little. “I'm kidding, Granger. But what are the odds, eh?”
Hermione gave the man on the bed a sly look, gaining her equilibrium at his relaxed tone. “I heard you were here too, and I thought I'd pop in and say hello... no one's seen or heard from you in years.”
Draco, seeming to regain colour and cheer by the second, raised a sardonic eyebrow. “We hardly parted on the best of terms. I was on the run, I'll have you know.”
Hermione smiled, feeling herself warming in his presence. So, he wasn't the man she had thought he was, but he was being civil - friendly, even - and she already felt the potential of friendship brimming through their banter. She smiled warmly at him, and settled down in the chair next to his bed.
“Did Harry tell you what was wrong with me?” she started, her confidence waning slightly as she approached the difficult subject. She needed to know where she stood with him - if he was aware she had effectively fallen in love with him.
“Potter mentioned you'd been hallucinating a bit - sort of a delayed post-traumatic stress, right?” he asked, and his voice held none of the disdain, the prejudice, that she had known of him years before. She wondered what had affected him so profoundly in fifteen years since she last actually saw him. He seemed so open and easy. “Bloody hell, you should have seen the state I was in before all of this happened; all these nasty curses and potions during the war made a right mess of my body and my brain; I was projecting all over the place at one point.”
“You're going to be okay now though, right?” she ventured, feeling her toes curl uneasily at the prospect of losing him again. She knew he was not the man she'd imagined, she completely understood how the struggles in her adult life had caused her to create a lover in the form of the memory of a childhood sweetheart, but she still felt an undeniable connection with the man in front of her.
“Yeah, yeah. Gonna make a full recovery. It's weird, actually, because they've no idea why I woke up. Apparently my brain-activity took a nose-dive one afternoon, which they were a bit worried about - understandably, really - and then a couple of hours later I woke up, fine.”
“Hmm,”she mused, wondering if this nosedive took place at the same time Harry had confronted her several weeks ago.
“Y'know Granger, I'm told you don't dream when you're in the sort of coma I was in, but it's the most peculiar thing; I dreamt of you... for months.”
-- finis.
soundtrack: Ani DiFranco, Snow Patrol.