A Pound of Flesh: Alternate Ending, Ch. 30
Thank you for your unending patience. I've finally completed the alternate ending to A Pound of Flesh. Please be aware that there is a very specific reason I chose not to end the story in this angsty manner, as I was trying to convey a message about accepting one's past and understanding that even the horrible things that happen to us shape us into the people we are. But if you aren't a fan of fluffy, happily ever after endings like the official ending to APoF, you're hopefully going to appreciate this uber-angst laden alternate end.
Since this was too big to post all in one entry, here is the first part.
A Pound of Flesh: Alternate Ending
Chapter Thirty
October gave way to November, and November to December. The days alternately dragged and raced by, and never in the way that Hermione wanted. The hard days plodded on in an endless stream of mundane tasks that left her mind free for unwelcome thought, and the rare good days where it didn’t hurt to wake up and breathe passed in a blur.
Christmas neared, and not even the prospect of spending it at the Burrow with her friends was enough to drag Hermione out of her funk. She wanted to be happy; wistful, she wandered Diagon Alley and watched families and lovers exclaim over window displays. But the twinkling fairy lights in the windows did nothing to buoy her mood. If anything, she grew more morose.
Faced with such pervasive happiness, Hermione wanted to turn and flee, but she’d left her Christmas shopping to the last moment and she didn’t have time to order things by owl post. So, taking a deep breath and plastering a fake smile on her face, Hermione ducked into Flourish and Blotts to buy a book on Healing for Ginny.
The store was crowded, loud, and too hot. Piped Christmas music provided cheery background noise, almost drowned out by the sound of cash registers, screaming children, and conversing adults. Suffocating under anxiety, Hermione clenched her hands into fists and plowed through the crowd until she managed to locate a random book about Healing. Then, book in hand, she got into the queue to pay, eyes locked on the heels of the person in front of her. The shoes were polished, manly shoes, expensive by the looks of them - shoes Draco might have worn.
It became even harder to breathe as the man in front of her shuffled forward a few steps. She followed, unable to tear her eyes away from his shoes, with their leather straps and silver buckles. She counted the shoelace eyelets so she wouldn’t look up to see if the man’s hair was platinum blond.
In fact, the more she didn’t want to look up, the harder it was not to. She knew the man in front of her couldn’t be Draco, but what if?
The line shuffled forward again, and Hermione allowed herself to look at his packages, which he carried in colorful bags from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes and Twilfit & Tattings. Her gaze traveled up to his hands, and she needed to look no further. Draco’s hands were long, slender, almost effeminate, but sure and graceful. The hands in front of her were square, with boxy fingers and gnarled knuckles.
She looked up then. Mousy brown hair under a smart black cap. The noise of the shop slammed into her once more and she almost turned to flee. But then the man in front of her stepped up to the register and Hermione had nothing left to stare at.
“Next.”
Hermione rushed to the register and set her purchase on the counter while she rummaged in her shoulder bag for the correct amount of galleons. She almost threw the coins at the cashier, grabbed the book, and headed for the door.
The rest of her shopping passed in a blur, and later, once she was ensconced in the safety of her bedroom, she reviewed her purchases. It was clear to her as she mentally matched gift to friend that her heart had not been in her shopping trip, but she knew her friends would pretend to like her presents all the same. She couldn’t find the energy within herself to care one way or another. At least shopping was out of the way. And, she bargained with herself, once she had everything wrapped, she could curl up on her sofa with a bowl of peppermint ice cream and watch some really horrible evening television.
She ended up with an extra present, and she stared at it, drawing a blank. She didn’t remember buying a silver cloak clasp shaped like a dragon curled upon itself, but there it was. Running through the list of her friends again, Hermione tried to deny she’d bought a gift for Draco, but he was the only one she would have bought such a beautiful clasp.
Feeling close to panic, Hermione replaced the clasp in the small black box it had come in, and nestled the box into the back corner of her underwear drawer where she hoped she would never see it again. Then she changed into her rattiest, warmest pajamas, grabbed a pint of ice cream from her freezer, and settled on the couch with Crookshanks curled around her feet.
The week leading up the Christmas felt like the longest of her life. She spent half of her days attempting to focus on her job, woefully bored and grateful that nobody questioned her multiple mistakes, and the other half waiting for an audience with the Wizengamot. She spent so much time outside the Wizengamot’s chambers that she’d grown to know the names of each court clerk, knew how they took their tea, and that the newest member of the Wizengamot was having a secret affair with an Unspeakable.
The Wizengamot was unseasonably busy, hearing trial after trial about trivialities and neighborly disputes. They didn’t have time to hear a case where the accused was long dead. But Hermione waited anyway, hoping that eventually, there would be a lull, and then the Wizengamot would at last give Draco his day in court.
The idea of being able to have Draco pardoned or found innocent of the crimes in his thin file was the only thing that coaxed Hermione out of bed most days. Since she’d come up with the harebrained idea and enlisted Harry, it was the only thing that still drove her. Her drive for everything else was gone. It had gone with Draco.
The Chief Warlock had summoned Hermione to his private chambers a week after she filed the petition for Draco’s trial, and had told her that only her name and status as a war heroine had convinced him to approve the trial. But she would have to wait for her day, as more important issues deserved the Wizengamot’s consideration.
Hermione had requested to be Draco’s advocate, though she didn’t have the professional training to defend him, and the Chief Warlock had granted her request, stating he didn’t imagine anyone else would want to defend him.
So Hermione paced outside the courtrooms and waited, or she tried to do her job while counting away the days of her life, and so went her existence. On Christmas Eve, she lingered outside the courtrooms until the last clerk doused his desk light and told her the Wizengamot was on holiday break and would resume hearing cases the second day of January.
Deflated, she went home and shed her work robes. She pulled a worn maroon jumper over her head, grabbed her pitiful bag of presents, and went to the Burrow.
It was loud in the small house, and Hermione had the mental image of the walls straining from the sheer volume of noise and people. It was overwhelming and distracting, and it was impossible to hear herself think. She sighed in relief and deposited her gifts under the bushy tree.
Ron hovered around her most of the evening, though she probably wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t started up the stairs to use the loo and turned with surprise to find him lurking at the foot of the stairs with a guilty, caught expression on his face. He sat next to her during the meal, brought her a cup of tea as everyone was settling in around the tree after dinner, and tried to convince her to play a game of chess with him.
When she stepped outside to Apparate home, Ron followed her out.
“Ron,” she said.
He flushed and blustered, and Hermione waited, knowing that he would get to the point more quickly if she didn’t interrupt. Finally, he blurted, “I think we should get back together.”
Hermione stumbled and almost fell off the porch. “What?”
“Let’s get back together.”
“I don’t think -”
“Just hear me out. I know - I know that you’re still upset about Damien -”
“Ron, listen -”
“No, wait. I know you’re still upset, but I want to make it better. Let me make it better, Hermione, please.”
Hermione, overwhelmed, stepped down from the porch and stared up at Ron, shaking her head. Make it better? Nothing would make it better except Draco, and that wasn’t going to happen. “You can’t -”
“Don’t - just don’t say no yet. Just think about it, alright? We were together a long time. I know you, Hermione. Know you.”
“Ron,” she began, a thousand different reasons why his suggestion was a horrible idea running through her head. But she stopped herself from saying any of them, because it was Christmastime, because he was her friend, and because he looked so hopeful. “I’ll - think about it,” she said. “I’m going to go home now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Happy Christmas,” Ron said with a quirked smile. She knew every freckle in that smile. Her throat tightened; all she could think of was Draco: what was he doing? Was he spending the holiday alone? Was he safe? Was he thinking of her?
“Happy Christmas,” Hermione squeaked. Then she fled, rushed down the path to the back gate, and Apparated back to her flat where she sat in the middle of her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and her eyes closed, imagining Christmas with Draco.
***
Hermione was dreaming, she knew. But it was a good dream, and she wasn’t ready to wake up.
The bed dipped as Draco climbed in next to her. He crawled up the length of her body, and he was whispering, but she couldn’t make out the words ghosting off his lips. She lay still and let him stretch out over her, his warm, welcome weight pushing her down into the mattress.
Draco hovered over her, silken strands of blond brushing her cheeks. His fingertips touched her lips, smoothed her brow. His head dropped, and he placed a trail of kisses on her neck.
She wanted to touch him, but she knew if she moved, he would vanish, so she held still and let him touch her.
“I miss you,” she breathed into the night.
“Shh,” he hushed, a soft puff of breath against her lips. “I’m here now.”
The urge to feel him under her hands was too much to bear, and she raised a hand to run through his hair, and just like every other time she dreamed this dream, Draco vanished and she woke alone in the dark.
***
Another long week passed, and Hermione began to feel like her skin was stretched taut. She itched and her clothes were too loose or too tight and her hair drove her to distraction and only the thought that Draco had loved her hair kept her from shaving it. She paced outside the courtrooms, let stacks of paperwork gather on her desk, and sidestepped all of Susan’s concerned inquiries. Simple tasks were too taxing, and getting out of bed every morning was like a personal victory. If she hadn’t been so filled with apathy, she would have been concerned for her mental health.
She’d had a life before Draco Malfoy had sashayed across the stage and stolen her breath. She’d had a life with a good job, where she was respected and on track for a promotion to management. Her friends were good people who cared about her and so what if she’d been alone? She didn’t need a man to function. She didn’t. What she did need, though she was loathe to admit it, was Draco. Ginny, in her no-nonsense way, sat Hermione down on New Year’s Eve and explained why.
“We need to have a little chat,” Ginny announced once Hermione appeared through the Floo, a few hours early for the New Year’s Eve party Harry and Ginny were hosting.
Hermione groaned. “Can’t it please just wait one more day?”
“No, it can’t.” With that, Ginny took Hermione by the hand and led her to the bedroom, where she sat Hermione on the bed. She pulled a party dress out of her closet, and as if she were discussing the weather, she said, “You could try to find him.”
Hermione didn’t pretend she didn’t know which ‘him’ Ginny meant. She had not heard from the man in question since he’d walked out of her flat for the last time more than two months ago. Once she’d found his flat empty, she’d not tried to find him. He knew how to reach her, if he ever decided to contact her again. Her hope for that happening diminished by the day, but perhaps he just needed time to sort everything out and once he had, he’d let her know he was okay.
Now, to Ginny, she said, “Why would I do that? Wherever he is, he’s better off than being here. He had no life here.”
“He had you here.”
“Yes, me, who lied to him for the entirety of our relationship.”
“Sometimes when someone runs away, they do it because they want you to come after them.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Hermione grumbled. “What’s the point in that?”
“It means you love them enough to chase after them.”
“I loved him enough to let him go,” Hermione countered. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Undeterred by Hermione’s argument, Ginny continued, “What’s the harm in owling him just the once?”
“He’s been through enough,” Hermione stated. “Besides, Draco didn’t run away so I would chase after him. He ran away so nobody else would find him. I’m sure he made certain nobody would be able to just owl him up out of the blue.”
“Why would he do that? The only person who would owl him would be you.”
“Exactly.”
“Hermione - ”
“Ginny,” Hermione interrupted. “Why are you pushing this? You hated me being with him. I’d think you’d be jumping for joy that he’s gone and not coming back.”
Ginny gave up her pretense of dressing for the party and sat next to Hermione on the bed. “You’re right. I did hate you being with him. I’m still not crazy about the idea of it.”
“Then why - ”
“You glowed when you were with him. And then when he left, it was like that light in you went out.” Ginny held up a hand to forestall Hermione’s protest. “You’re different now than you were before him. Before Draco, it was sort of like you were wandering around blind, even when you were with Ron. It was like you were walking in this haze, doing what you thought people expected of you, like you weren’t even all there. It’s like you were so busy ignoring the past that you couldn’t live in the present.”
Hermione closed her eyes. “That’s what Ron said, too.”
“And then Draco came along and made you remember.”
Hermione opened her mouth to disagree, to say that Draco had made her forget, but she realized that wasn’t true. He had made her remember, and he’d made her realize she couldn’t avoid the past, and she shouldn’t want to. He’d taught her, however indirectly, that her past was part of who she was. In Draco’s case, without that part directing him who to be, he’d become someone else, someone better. In her case, trying to ignore the past had made her someone else, someone worse.
“I know it was hard for you,” Ginny continued. “Knowing who he was and not telling him. But you were happy. It was like something inside you turned on. It was like he made you accept all the parts of you, and you were okay with all the parts of Hermione. That’s why I’m pushing it. I want you to be happy again.”
“I’m happier than I used to be,” Hermione defended.
“No, Hermione, you’re not. Have you seen yourself? Sweetie, you’re a wreck.”
“Thanks,” Hermione grumbled. “I thought it was just me thinking that. How sweet of you to notice.”
“Don’t be that way,” Ginny said. “I’m sorry. But it’s the truth. You’re not happy. You’re miserable. And I know that Draco made you really, actually happy.”
“He did,” Hermione said, unable to keep the wistful tone out of her voice.
“If that’s what it takes for you to be happy again, then, let’s find him. Just write to him, just the once, and see what happens.”
For the second time in a week, Hermione lied, “I’ll think about it.”
Later, at the party, which was crammed full of happy people, some that Hermione recognized from Hogwarts, others from Harry’s Quidditch team, and yet others as Ginny’s fellow Healer trainees, she felt lonely. So when Ron offered her a drink, and at midnight, a rather drunken kiss, Hermione didn’t stop him.
***
“I’m here.”
The whisper came out of the dark. She was dreaming again.
Hermione opened her eyes. Draco was standing in front of the window, backlit by the streetlights. She did not move. She would not move this time. She would stay still and he would stay.
He came to the edge of the bed. She could smell him, and it wasn’t the odor of cigarette smoke and stale liquor. It was the warm, musky scent of oil with a hint of lavender and soap.
“You left,” she said, trying not to move her lips, just in case.
“I did. You understand why, don’t you?”
“I do.” She felt like crying. “But I miss you all the same.”
“I’m here now,” he said, leaning over her. Even though the room was dark, there was just enough light coming through her window so his eyes gleamed.
“You’re going to leave again,” she sighed as his lips found her cheek.
“Kiss me,” he said. “Kiss me and I’ll stay.”
She turned her head to meet his lips, but like the slightest gust of wind, he was gone.
***
Hermione woke to the first morning of the New Year with a raging headache, a queasy stomach, and filled with self-loathing. All-in-all, not a promising start. She rolled out of bed, wincing at the meager light spilling through her curtains, and made her way to the bathroom. A scalding shower did not make her feel any less dirty; it was just a kiss - possibly two; the whole happening seemed a little blurry in the light of day - but to Ron it had been so much more, and she felt like she’d betrayed not just his friendship, but Draco, as well.
She had to admit, the idea of getting back together with Ron seemed so easy, like slipping on a pair of warm, worn pajamas. But it would be for all the wrong reasons, and she’d never really considered the idea. She’d taken advantage of Ron’s honest desire to be with her as a means to temporarily escape her lonesomeness for Draco. She was a horrible person who deserved to be alone.
“Happy New Year,” she muttered to herself. “You freaking ball of sunshine.”
With no real plans for the day, she tucked herself into her sofa, a roaring fire in her hearth and sappy holiday movies on the television. Her flat was chilly; in spite of the cheery fire, the old flat was full of drafts that tickled the back of her neck and caused her to shiver. She pulled a fuzzy red blanket from the back of her sofa and wrapped up in it, bringing the worn fleece up to her face and inhaling. The scent was gone from her bed now; at last she’d washed the sheets and blankets. The pillows, too, had lost the comforting smell of Draco, but this one blanket still retained his aroma, though it was only a matter of time until it faded as well.
After a few hours spent watching the television, Hermione grew restless and wandered to the kitchen, where she pounded on the window frame to unstick it, and then she raised the sash and stepped out onto her fire escape, which was coated in a thin layer of snow. Surprised, she ran her hands over the snow-covered railing, thinking how rare it was for it to actually snow in London, and she’d been too drunk to notice.
It was an overcast, cold day, with low-hanging clouds that threatened to drop more snow on the city. Hermione tugged the blanket around her shoulders up to cover the exposed skin of her neck, and then leaned against the railing. She looked down at the courtyard, the pristine layer of snow broken by a set of footprints circling the frozen fountain. As she gazed down at the yard below, her mind began to wander. As it often did, it wandered to Draco.
Where was he? What was he doing? Had he forgiven her? Did he think of her? Was he dead inside, too?
When Hermione started to shiver, she straightened and made to go inside, but just as she did, she saw a snowflake drifting down from the sky. She waited and watched as more flakes joined the first, swirling and blowing in the icy wind. She reached out and caught one on the tip of her finger and watched as it rested a moment before the heat of her skin caused it to melt. She wondered if it was snowing where Draco was.
***
Several days later, Hermione made her way across the MLE offices to her desk, still shaking rain from her cloak. She’d just had her customary Thursday lunch date with Ginny and Luna, who had blushed prettily and held out her left hand to show the small diamond ring that Dean had given her. They were well suited for each other, she thought. She was happy for them and not bitter in the least, she was relieved to note. Her happiness for them was only colored with the longing to have that type of happiness herself. Ginny had mentioned Ron, had made a veiled threat that another discussion was in order, and then, blessedly, had left it alone in the face of Luna’s glee.
Susan joined her at the desk moments later, her hair ruffled and a scowl on her face. She was grumbling in irritation, and the look she sent Hermione could have cut glass.
“Problems?” Hermione asked out of common courtesy.
“You know, I didn’t want to say anything because you’ve been going through a hard time, and I know that, but you’re a professional. Pull your act together.”
Startled, Hermione froze in the act of taking off her cloak and gawked. “What did I do?”
“You think nobody has noticed that you’ve slipped? That you’re not all there? That you don’t give a flying fuck?”
“Susan, what’s going on?”
“They’re putting you strictly on desk duty, which means I get a new partner.”
“What?” Hermione asked, aghast. “Susan, I -”
“And do you know who my new partner is?” Susan continued, barreling over any apology Hermione might have attempted. Without waiting for a response, she snapped, “Hutchinson, that’s who. Sam bloody-nephew-to-the-department-head Hutchinson.”
“Hutchinson?” Horrified, Hermione turned to look for the new recruit, and found he had squeezed his enormous, bulky frame into a standard size Ministry issued chair and was attempting to read a backlog of folders that needed to be filed away. He looked like an elephant squeezed into a clown car. “No, Susan, just let me go talk to Blackwell. I’ll get this straightened out. I know I’ve been a little out of it lately but -”
“It’s too late for that, Hermione. It’s a done deal.”
“But -”
“He’s going to be a nightmare. You know Blackwell pulled some strings to get him in. There’s no way that dunderhead passed the exams.”
“I know if I just go and talk to Blackwell -”
“Good luck with that. They’re all tiptoeing around you. Like nobody else was ever tossed to the curb. Like you’re some fragile little princess they’re afraid of upsetting.”
Hurt, Hermione pressed a hand to her throat and swallowed. “Susan, enough. I’m sorry, alright? I’ll fix it.” She registered, on some distant level, that activity around them had ceased as people were drawn to their argument.
“Right, Granger,” Susan snorted. “Because you’ve been so good at fixing everything else in your life.”
It was as though Susan had punched her in the stomach. Hermione exhaled and dropped into her chair with a thud.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” Hermione managed. “I can’t bear it if anyone else is mad at me.”
The anger on Susan’s face faltered for a moment, and then she shuttered it into cold indifference. “Maybe we’ll discuss this later,” she said at last. “I have to go train my new partner.” Then she turned her back on Hermione and made her way to Hutchinson’s desk.
She was aware of the unnatural silence of the office, and she darted a quick glance around to confirm that, yes, everyone was staring at her. She tried to hold her head high, but the weight was incredible; all she wanted to do was rest her forehead on the desk and cry. Then, cued by some unspoken signal, her coworkers returned to their duties, noisy and productive. She shot a look at Blackwell’s office; he was standing in the doorway, looking at her.
However, just as he parted from his office door and started the trek to her desk to relieve her from active duty, an out of breath clerk from the courtrooms appeared next to her, panting. Already out of sorts, Hermione was so startled by his sudden appearance that she almost toppled backward out of her chair.
“Afternoon’s case canceled. Wizengamot’s free. Chief Warlock says now’s your chance,” the clerk wheezed. “The witnesses are being gathered.”
Hermione stopped breathing for a moment, and everything seemed to freeze. After all this time, why now? Why when everything in her life was in shambles and she was on the verge of having a breakdown was she being given the opportunity to plead Draco’s case? Sudden terror gripped her. What if she screwed this up for him too?
Hermione sat frozen for another moment, feeling like a rock sinking in the ocean. The clerk jerked her to her feet, impatient. She swayed in shock, and then everything started moving again. She ripped open the lap drawer of her desk and pulled out the copy of Draco’s Ministry file, and then she bolted for the lifts. This, at least, she had a chance to fix. Everything else would wait.
The courtroom, one of the lesser used, smaller spaces, was empty when Hermione burst into it, and for a short, heartbreaking moment, she thought she’d missed her chance. But then the door to the Wizengamot’s chambers opened and the multitude of crimson-robed figures began the slow process of filing into their seats. The seats behind Hermione began to fill with the usual crowd of spectators who hung about the Ministry, waiting for trials such as this one. She spotted a few journalists, and turned away when a photographer for the Prophet snapped a picture of her.
A few minutes later, Harry arrived, still in his Quidditch uniform, his damp hair sticking to his forehead. Ginny entered behind him with Ron, also still in his Cannons uniform. More people she knew began to file in behind Ron: Andromeda, Katie Bell, Professor McGonagall, Madam Rosmerta, and Pansy Parkinson.
Pansy met her eye for a moment; there was something hard and fiery in her stare. Her mouth set in a characteristic frown, Pansy nodded to Hermione and then took a seat in the section reserved for witnesses. Katie Bell and Madam Rosmerta joined her. Professor McGonagall stepped forward to clasp Hermione’s hands with whispered reassurances, and then she took a seat next to Madam Rosmerta.
Harry approached her while Ron and Ginny hung back. “I hope this works out like you want,” he told her.
“Thank you for doing this,” Hermione said, blinking back unexpected tears of gratitude. “I owe you in a big way.”
Harry put a hand on her shoulder and patted it awkwardly. “No. We’re even now.” At Hermione’s confused look, he explained, “After everything you did for me, staying with me and keeping me alive all that time we were… camping, this is the least I can do.”
The Chief Warlock called for the proceedings to begin, and as Harry made his way to his seat beside Katie Bell, Hermione took a fortifying breath. Then she turned to address the Wizengamot.
***
The trial lasted for a day and a half. The witnesses for the prosecution all spoke damningly of Draco; meanwhile, Hermione had Pansy to speak on Draco’s behalf. Then Harry strode to the center of the room and sat down in the chair to face the Wizengamot. The crowd grew hushed as Hermione wove Harry through his six-year relationship with Draco. When Harry spoke of the night Dumbledore had died, the only sound besides his voice in the echoing room was the constant click of a camera.
In the silence that followed when Harry finished his story, Hermione poured Alecto Carrow’s memory into the Chief Warlock’s Pensieve and prodded the iridescent surface to project the image of the memory onto the ceiling overhead. She closed her eyes while the memory played out, not wanting to see it again, but she could still hear, and while Draco screamed and Voldemort laughed, the crowd in the courtroom wept. When the memory ended, Hermione looked at Harry. He was pale, his fingers clenched, white-knuckled, around the arms of the chair.
“Harry,” she said, drawing the crowd’s attention back to her. “Do you think Draco Malfoy should be convicted of the crimes with which he has been charged, based on the testimony we’ve heard and the evidence we’ve seen?”
Harry took a deep breath and flicked his eyes up at the now bare ceiling. “I don’t think I would have done things the way he did, but I’ll never know for sure. My parents were dead before I could remember them. I know if they’d lived, I would have done anything to protect them, though, even if it meant my own life. I would have gone to Dumbledore for help, but I trusted him. Malfoy didn’t have anyone he trusted that he could go to.”
“Harry?” Hermione prodded.
“No. No, I don’t agree with how he did things, but I think it was the only way he knew. I don’t think he should be convicted.” Harry turned in his seat and looked at the Wizengamot. “He’s dead. He’s already paid the price for what he did.”
***
Draco.
Hermione could think of little else as she walked out of the courtroom, still not able to fully grasp what had just happened inside the chamber. Draco had been a constant presence in her mind since she’d stumbled across him in August, and just because he had been gone for over two months, that did not dull the shine of him in her memories.
He was impossible to forget, and she spent her nights remembering. The distinct way different parts of him smelled: his hair a crisp, clean scent; his skin the mixture of lavender oil, soap, and a hint of leather; and his hands, which usually carried the aroma of old books and lotion. The feel of his body pressed against her as she lost herself in him night after night, coming apart for him so he could take his time putting her together again. The ghosting touch of his nimble fingers dancing over her skin, tracing his name into the small of her back. His fascination - love affair - with her mane of hair: how often he would curl next to her on the bed and follow the spirals of curls around and around with his fingers. The way his brows knitted together in a brief moment of concentration when he learned something new. The way he would grab hold of her hand in his sleep and hold it tight against his chest, near his heart.
She never used to believe in soul mates, thinking it some maudlin, silly concept, but now, she thought that perhaps she did.
The bitter tang of his absence was harder to bear today, because now she had no real reason to keep him in her thoughts. She’d fought her hardest to clear his name, and now the trial was over.
It was time to let him go, as she’d promised him she would.
It was harder to let go than she’d imagined, even though he’d left months ago.
Then Ron was there beside her with a comforting smile, shaking her from her thoughts as he tried to take hold of her hand.
“Not now, Ron,” she snapped, shaking him off.
He let his hand drop and his whole demeanor changed. “Ginny was right,” he said, bitter.
“Right about what?”
“She said you wouldn’t want me back. You don’t, do you?”
Hermione wanted more than anything for the floor to open up, for the ground to give way, and for the earth to suck her under. She wished for it so hard that she half-believed it would happen. Ron took her silence for the affirmative, and he shook his head, barking out a hard chuckle.
“I knew it. Nothing’s changed at all.” Looking at her with disgust, Ron turned on his heel and left her standing in the corridor. Harry and Ginny stood back and watched, then with apologetic smiles, they turned and hurried after Ron.
And that was her defining moment.
***
“Miss Granger, I wish you’d reconsider.”
Hermione looked up from her badge, which she held out in the palm of her hand. It was still shiny after all this time - she’d polished it every morning before pinning it to her MLE robes. Her supervisor, a middle-aged wizard with a mousy brown ponytail and matching mustache, kept his hands folded and in front of him on the desk.
“I’m not going to reconsider, sir,” Hermione said, her voice level and flat. Inside, she was seething.
“I understand you are disappointed with the outcome of this trial - ”
“Yes, sir, but I understand you also meant to remove me from active duty, and I’d rather not face that embarrassment as well.”
“We can offer you a raise, your own office, a promotion. We can get you counseling, get you through whatever it is you’re going through right now.”
“I’m not interested in remaining a Ministry employee, Mr. Blackwell.” Hermione deposited her badge on her superior’s desk. As she turned to leave, he shoved away from his desk and jumped to his feet.
“Miss Granger - Hermione, what can we do to keep your services?”
Hermione stopped in the doorway and considered his question. She knew there was nothing he could do for her; he was too far down on the Ministry food chain to offer her what she really wanted. “I’m sorry, sir. There isn’t anything you can do.”
Mr. Blackwell came around the desk and held out his hand, resigned. “You’ve been an asset to the department, Miss Granger. We wish you the best with your future endeavors.”
Hermione returned the polite handshake, though she wanted nothing more than to slap his hand away. But it wasn’t his fault, she knew. She was just angry. “Thank you, sir.”
When she reached her desk, she picked up the box containing her personal effects and shrank it to fit into her pocket. She looked around the office, which was in a state of constant disarray, and felt nothing but emptiness. It was odd; she thought she would feel more after spending three years in one place. But the MLE was part of the Ministry, and Hermione felt no love loss for the organization that governed the wizarding population.
In hindsight, she wished the Wizengamot had just denied her request to give Draco Malfoy his day in court, deceased or not, instead of going ahead with the trial and continuing their unbroken record of being unforgiving and merciless. They wouldn’t even forgive dead men.
She wondered what Susan would think when she came in from patrolling with the rookie trainee and found her ex-partner’s desk emptied.
The clock chimed four times, reminding Hermione she had precisely one hour before the special evening edition of the Daily Prophet announced to the world that the Wizengamot had flexed its iron fist once again and convicted another Death Eater for his crimes. One hour until the world discovered that Hermione Granger had pled his case and failed. And perhaps an hour and a half until somewhere, an owl delivered the news to Draco.
Blowing out a disgusted breath, Hermione swept out of the office and stormed for the stairwell, too upset to wait for the lifts to carry her to the Atrium, where that god-awful statue of Harry beamed down at the bustling crowds. Where was justice in the world when a dead seventeen-year-old who’d been coerced into his malicious deeds was found guilty for no other reason than the Wizengamot could not show any mercy for fear of a mass of appeals from Azkaban?
Her anger only increased as she shoved through the crowds around the statue of Harry. Not even having Harry Potter speak on his behalf had done Draco any good. What would he do when he read of his verdict in the Prophet? He hadn’t even known he was on trial.
There was no line at the Floos at this time of day, so Hermione threw a handful of Floo powder into the flames, shouted her destination, and stepped through the flames. After a few moments of spinning travel, she emerged in her own flat. She disabled the Floo, and threw a chair at it for good measure. And that was when the fury morphed into despair.
It had been her only chance. If only the Wizengamot had exonerated Draco instead of condemning him. She’d hoped - such a dangerous thing, she recognized with bitter acceptance - that if the Wizengamot had been merciful and granted Draco clemency, that he might come back. Now she knew he never would. Never could.
If only she knew where Draco had gone. She didn’t want him to read about his fate in the Prophet, but there was no way she’d be able to find him in less than two hours.
Defeated, she sank onto her couch and buried her head in her arms. She should be attempting to make amends with Ron, should be trying to sort out when things had spiraled so absolutely beyond her control, should be trying to think of a way to fix things, but at the moment, all she wanted to do was sit there and stare at the floor and wallow in her despair.
No job, on the outs with her family, discord among her friends, and a failure at everything she tried, Hermione tipped sideways on the couch and thought how easy it would be to just leave it all behind and start over.
***
She blinked awake; she’d been asleep for hours and her flat was dark, but she knew in an instant that she was not alone.
“Ginny?” she called, rubbing her face and rising from her slumped position on the couch.
“No, it’s me.” The voice came from behind her head, and she froze.
I’m dreaming, she realized.
“You’re not really here,” she said. “I’m still asleep. You’re just torturing me. Well, I’ve got news for you. I’m doing just fine torturing myself.”
Shocked silence met her declaration, and then Draco stepped into her line of view, a solid shadow in a shadow-filled room.
“Think I’m a nightmare, do you?”
“Not a nightmare,” she choked. “Just a silly dream of something I’ll never have again.”
“I’m not a dream.”
“Yes, you are. As soon as I move, you’re going to disappear, just like you always do.”
“Is that why you’re sitting like that? You’re afraid to move? Move, then. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You always say that,” she sighed, but she reached out to touch him anyway.
And he did not disappear.
He felt real under her hand, and warm. His shirt was smooth against her fingers; beneath it she felt his arm muscles flex as he reached out for her.
“No,” she breathed. “You can’t be here. Not now. I’ve ruined it. You’re not here. You’re not.”
Draco caught her hand for a brief moment and dropped it. “Hate to make your day worse, but here I am.”
“Make my day worse?” she repeated. “Don’t you know what I’ve done to you? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Hermione,” he said, and he sat next to her on the couch. Then, “I’m sorry, do we need to have this conversation in the dark?” Sudden weak light flared from the lamp on the table next to the couch, and she winced, shying away from the light. Draco grabbed her chin. “Don’t turn away. I haven’t seen you in months. The least you can do is look at me, unless you find me so repulsive.”
She whipped her head up and around, her protest dying on her lips. He looked like she felt, which was also probably how she looked. Pale. Purplish smudges colored the hollows under his eyes, which seemed devoid of any spark of life. Drained. Defeated. Stubble covered his cheeks and chin, and his once manicured hair was dull as it hung in a shaggy curtain around his face. She doubted he’d cut it once since he’d vanished. Haggard. Hopeless.
And she’d done this to him.
With a moan of despair, she attempted to bury her face in her hands, but Draco stopped her. “Don’t. I want to see your face. I haven’t seen it in so long.”
“Why? You must know what I did.”
“I know. I read it. It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” she exclaimed.
“Draco Malfoy is already dead. What’s the worst they can do to a dead man?”
“There’s plenty they can do to you. Azkaban, for starters. You aren’t dead.”
“No, but Draco Malfoy is. That’s not who I am anymore.” With a haunted look on his face, he said, “I’d hoped to maybe come back one day. After staying away for a few years, I thought maybe I might be able to come back, that everyone would have forgotten my face.”
Hermione didn’t think it was possible that anyone would ever be able to forget his face.
“Or that I would be forgiven, that the Ministry would show a little mercy.” His eyes cleared and he looked at her, then. “But you -”
“I’m so sorry,” she interrupted. “I didn’t think it would turn out that way.”
He ignored her outburst. “You proved that waiting would have been a waste of my time. They never would have forgiven me. I’m unforgivable.”
“No, you aren’t,” she whispered.
“But since I can’t come back, ever, I’ve decided to stay away for good.” He paused, seeming to expect her to interrupt again and point out that his very presence in her flat contradicted that statement. When she didn’t, he continued, “But I needed something first, and it’s something that only you can give me.”
“What?”
“You can make it go all away.”
“What?”
“You can make me forget again. I want you to Obliviate me. I’d rather not go on living like this.”
“No,” she said at once, jumping to her feet and taking several steps back from him. “I will not. I swore I would never -”
“I have nightmares every night.” He stood and followed her to where she stopped in the middle of the room. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I try to stay awake as long as I can, but I have to sleep sometime. And then I have nightmares. Of You-Know-Who. Of my mother screaming in the room beneath me when they kill her. Of Dumbledore - his eyes are gone and his fingers are bone and he reaches out for me - ” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “I haven’t left the place I’m staying in over a month. I’m too afraid to go out - that someone might see me and recognize me and have me sent to Azkaban. I have everything delivered - food, supplies, anything I might need. I have them put it in a box outside where I’m staying - I don’t even let the delivery people see me.
“I’m afraid, all the time, Granger.” He looked at her, desperate. “Hermione - last time you didn’t give me a choice. You just took it away. This time, I’m asking. It’s my choice. Please. Don’t make me remember all of this. I’m losing my mind. Look at me!”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she protested. “Don’t tell me you want to go back to having no idea who you are, lost and alone.”
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t want that. I just want to forget that I’m me, and that the things I remember in my nightmares ever happened. Just - modify my memories. Let me keep some things.”
“It isn’t right. You shouldn’t get to choose what you remember.”
Draco closed his eyes again, wilting. “You told me once - didn’t you - you said something to the effect that it was a good thing I couldn’t remember. Because you knew just how awful the things were that I’d forgotten.”
She did remember saying that. And she could understand his desire to forget. She remembered doing her best to forget but being unable to. What would she forget if she could? The war, for starters. The whole war. She’d forget that Tonks and Lupin were dead, that Fred was dead, that Dumbledore was dead. She’d forget Voldemort and the sensation of the Killing Curse traveling down her arm and out her wand. She’d forget that her parents wanted nothing to do with her.
How much happier she’d be without those memories. They helped shape her into who she was, it was true, but who was she except a disgraced war veteran, with no job, with parents that didn’t talk to her and friends who treated her like she was made of eggshells? Who was she except a depressed, lonely witch that had cocked it all up?
And here, asking her to make him forget, was the only person who could understand. The only person who had been able to shake her out of her doldrums and breathe some life into her existence.
“Alright,” she said at last, coming to a sudden and reckless decision. “But you’re taking me with you.”
“What?”
“Take me with you. I Obliviate you, and you Obliviate me.”
Draco looked relieved, then confused, then relieved again.
“You want to come with me?”
“If you’ll have me,” she said, hoping that he would.
“If I’ll have you?” he repeated, looking like he wanted to laugh. “Why would you want to come with me?”
“There’s plenty I want to forget, too. And - and -” She took a deep breath and then blurted, “And I love you. I miss you. I want to be with you.”
Draco tipped up her chin to redirect her gaze from the floor. Her face was flaming with embarrassment. Then he took a deep breath, and said, “You’ll be Jane. My fiancée.”
Hermione almost laughed at the weight that was lifting from her shoulders. “Was that a proposal?”
“Do you want one?”
She shook her head as he started to get down on one knee. “Propose after. I want to remember that.”
Draco straightened. “Alright.”
“So I go back to being Jane. And you’ll be Damien King again? But not a stripper.”
“No, definitely not.”
“What about the magic?”
“I don’t want to lose that again.”
“I’d prefer to keep it myself.”
“Agreed.”
They hammered out new personal and shared histories over the course of the next hour. They kept it as close to reality as possible, that they’d met at Hogwarts and shared a mutual dislike. But then they deviated, modifying events from fifth year and onward. The new memories would be of them being forced to work with one another on a group project and finding each other not as disagreeable as they’d once thought. It was a bit too cute for Hermione’s taste, but it was effective. Once their new shared history was written out, both studied it until they had it memorized. Hermione could not quite believe this was happening. What would her friends say when they finally came to look for her and found her long gone?
She left Draco in the main room, studying the outline of their new life once more, and she went into her room to pack. Crookshanks darted between her legs when she yanked her trunk out of the corner and upended it, spilling out the contents. The picture of her with Harry and Ron was still stuck to the inside of the lid and she left it. After all, she wouldn’t be forgetting them, just that they were still friends.
Into the trunk she threw clothing and shoes, books and photographs. Then she coaxed Crookshanks into his cat carrier and scooped him up in one hand, dragging the trunk in her other.
She met Draco back in the main room.
“Is that everything?” he eyed the trunk. “You can take more, you know. I did.”
“I don’t need anything else. I have what I need. Everything else I can get later.”
“And there’s nothing here of mine?”
“No, that’s already been taken care of,” she said, “just in case.”
“Right. Good.”
“Ready?” she asked, having a hard time breathing.
Draco touched her face, one finger trailing down her cheek. “I’m glad you’ll be with me.”
Hermione closed her eyes, her throat tightening. “Me too.”
She felt him lean in and then he kissed her tentatively, tenderly. When the kiss ended, he brushed his knuckles against her face and took a step back. “On the count of three.”
Hermione placed her wand against Draco’s temple. He rested his wand against hers.
“One.”
Though she was trying very hard not to think of them, images and memories of her family screamed through her mind, as if they knew they were about to be forgotten and wanted one last chance to be seen. She saw her father holding out his arms to hug her after she’d come home from school full of horror stories about the strange things that kept happening to her. Her mother taking her Hogwarts letter into her hands and reading it, then laughing and declaring it a hoax. Saw them standing at Platform 9 ¾, waiting for her to get off the train. Her mother was beaming a bright, wide smile, and her father was looking around in amazement. The Weasleys were there, as well, keeping her parents company while they waited.
Christmases at home, eating gingersnaps by the Christmas tree and trying to guess what each brightly wrapped package contained. Summer holidays in Greece. The way her father hummed in surprise whenever he read something that interested him. Her mother’s warm eyes, listening with acceptance as she bemoaned the unlikelihood of Ron ever wanting her for more than a friend.
She took a shuddering, watery breath and whispered, “Two.”
Then Harry was there, dancing across her eyelids. Harry and Ginny and Ron and Susan and Neville and Luna and Dean. Luna and Dean would be married and she would miss it. Harry and Ginny would have children and she would miss it. Neville would keep teaching at Hogwarts and she’d never even been to visit him there.
Saw Harry’s wide, unassuming smile, every freckle on Ron’s nose. Ginny’s kind eyes, Susan’s shrewd grin. Thought of Neville’s humor, of Luna’s unique outlook on life. Of Dean’s way of finding beauty in everything.
But then she opened her eyes and looked at Draco. He was looking back at her, waiting for her to finish the count with a grateful smile on his lips and love in his gaze.
She steadied herself then, and said, “Three.”
“Obliviate!”
Click here here for the Alternate Ending: Epilogue
Since this was too big to post all in one entry, here is the first part.
A Pound of Flesh: Alternate Ending
Chapter Thirty
October gave way to November, and November to December. The days alternately dragged and raced by, and never in the way that Hermione wanted. The hard days plodded on in an endless stream of mundane tasks that left her mind free for unwelcome thought, and the rare good days where it didn’t hurt to wake up and breathe passed in a blur.
Christmas neared, and not even the prospect of spending it at the Burrow with her friends was enough to drag Hermione out of her funk. She wanted to be happy; wistful, she wandered Diagon Alley and watched families and lovers exclaim over window displays. But the twinkling fairy lights in the windows did nothing to buoy her mood. If anything, she grew more morose.
Faced with such pervasive happiness, Hermione wanted to turn and flee, but she’d left her Christmas shopping to the last moment and she didn’t have time to order things by owl post. So, taking a deep breath and plastering a fake smile on her face, Hermione ducked into Flourish and Blotts to buy a book on Healing for Ginny.
The store was crowded, loud, and too hot. Piped Christmas music provided cheery background noise, almost drowned out by the sound of cash registers, screaming children, and conversing adults. Suffocating under anxiety, Hermione clenched her hands into fists and plowed through the crowd until she managed to locate a random book about Healing. Then, book in hand, she got into the queue to pay, eyes locked on the heels of the person in front of her. The shoes were polished, manly shoes, expensive by the looks of them - shoes Draco might have worn.
It became even harder to breathe as the man in front of her shuffled forward a few steps. She followed, unable to tear her eyes away from his shoes, with their leather straps and silver buckles. She counted the shoelace eyelets so she wouldn’t look up to see if the man’s hair was platinum blond.
In fact, the more she didn’t want to look up, the harder it was not to. She knew the man in front of her couldn’t be Draco, but what if?
The line shuffled forward again, and Hermione allowed herself to look at his packages, which he carried in colorful bags from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes and Twilfit & Tattings. Her gaze traveled up to his hands, and she needed to look no further. Draco’s hands were long, slender, almost effeminate, but sure and graceful. The hands in front of her were square, with boxy fingers and gnarled knuckles.
She looked up then. Mousy brown hair under a smart black cap. The noise of the shop slammed into her once more and she almost turned to flee. But then the man in front of her stepped up to the register and Hermione had nothing left to stare at.
“Next.”
Hermione rushed to the register and set her purchase on the counter while she rummaged in her shoulder bag for the correct amount of galleons. She almost threw the coins at the cashier, grabbed the book, and headed for the door.
The rest of her shopping passed in a blur, and later, once she was ensconced in the safety of her bedroom, she reviewed her purchases. It was clear to her as she mentally matched gift to friend that her heart had not been in her shopping trip, but she knew her friends would pretend to like her presents all the same. She couldn’t find the energy within herself to care one way or another. At least shopping was out of the way. And, she bargained with herself, once she had everything wrapped, she could curl up on her sofa with a bowl of peppermint ice cream and watch some really horrible evening television.
She ended up with an extra present, and she stared at it, drawing a blank. She didn’t remember buying a silver cloak clasp shaped like a dragon curled upon itself, but there it was. Running through the list of her friends again, Hermione tried to deny she’d bought a gift for Draco, but he was the only one she would have bought such a beautiful clasp.
Feeling close to panic, Hermione replaced the clasp in the small black box it had come in, and nestled the box into the back corner of her underwear drawer where she hoped she would never see it again. Then she changed into her rattiest, warmest pajamas, grabbed a pint of ice cream from her freezer, and settled on the couch with Crookshanks curled around her feet.
The week leading up the Christmas felt like the longest of her life. She spent half of her days attempting to focus on her job, woefully bored and grateful that nobody questioned her multiple mistakes, and the other half waiting for an audience with the Wizengamot. She spent so much time outside the Wizengamot’s chambers that she’d grown to know the names of each court clerk, knew how they took their tea, and that the newest member of the Wizengamot was having a secret affair with an Unspeakable.
The Wizengamot was unseasonably busy, hearing trial after trial about trivialities and neighborly disputes. They didn’t have time to hear a case where the accused was long dead. But Hermione waited anyway, hoping that eventually, there would be a lull, and then the Wizengamot would at last give Draco his day in court.
The idea of being able to have Draco pardoned or found innocent of the crimes in his thin file was the only thing that coaxed Hermione out of bed most days. Since she’d come up with the harebrained idea and enlisted Harry, it was the only thing that still drove her. Her drive for everything else was gone. It had gone with Draco.
The Chief Warlock had summoned Hermione to his private chambers a week after she filed the petition for Draco’s trial, and had told her that only her name and status as a war heroine had convinced him to approve the trial. But she would have to wait for her day, as more important issues deserved the Wizengamot’s consideration.
Hermione had requested to be Draco’s advocate, though she didn’t have the professional training to defend him, and the Chief Warlock had granted her request, stating he didn’t imagine anyone else would want to defend him.
So Hermione paced outside the courtrooms and waited, or she tried to do her job while counting away the days of her life, and so went her existence. On Christmas Eve, she lingered outside the courtrooms until the last clerk doused his desk light and told her the Wizengamot was on holiday break and would resume hearing cases the second day of January.
Deflated, she went home and shed her work robes. She pulled a worn maroon jumper over her head, grabbed her pitiful bag of presents, and went to the Burrow.
It was loud in the small house, and Hermione had the mental image of the walls straining from the sheer volume of noise and people. It was overwhelming and distracting, and it was impossible to hear herself think. She sighed in relief and deposited her gifts under the bushy tree.
Ron hovered around her most of the evening, though she probably wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t started up the stairs to use the loo and turned with surprise to find him lurking at the foot of the stairs with a guilty, caught expression on his face. He sat next to her during the meal, brought her a cup of tea as everyone was settling in around the tree after dinner, and tried to convince her to play a game of chess with him.
When she stepped outside to Apparate home, Ron followed her out.
“Ron,” she said.
He flushed and blustered, and Hermione waited, knowing that he would get to the point more quickly if she didn’t interrupt. Finally, he blurted, “I think we should get back together.”
Hermione stumbled and almost fell off the porch. “What?”
“Let’s get back together.”
“I don’t think -”
“Just hear me out. I know - I know that you’re still upset about Damien -”
“Ron, listen -”
“No, wait. I know you’re still upset, but I want to make it better. Let me make it better, Hermione, please.”
Hermione, overwhelmed, stepped down from the porch and stared up at Ron, shaking her head. Make it better? Nothing would make it better except Draco, and that wasn’t going to happen. “You can’t -”
“Don’t - just don’t say no yet. Just think about it, alright? We were together a long time. I know you, Hermione. Know you.”
“Ron,” she began, a thousand different reasons why his suggestion was a horrible idea running through her head. But she stopped herself from saying any of them, because it was Christmastime, because he was her friend, and because he looked so hopeful. “I’ll - think about it,” she said. “I’m going to go home now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Happy Christmas,” Ron said with a quirked smile. She knew every freckle in that smile. Her throat tightened; all she could think of was Draco: what was he doing? Was he spending the holiday alone? Was he safe? Was he thinking of her?
“Happy Christmas,” Hermione squeaked. Then she fled, rushed down the path to the back gate, and Apparated back to her flat where she sat in the middle of her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and her eyes closed, imagining Christmas with Draco.
***
Hermione was dreaming, she knew. But it was a good dream, and she wasn’t ready to wake up.
The bed dipped as Draco climbed in next to her. He crawled up the length of her body, and he was whispering, but she couldn’t make out the words ghosting off his lips. She lay still and let him stretch out over her, his warm, welcome weight pushing her down into the mattress.
Draco hovered over her, silken strands of blond brushing her cheeks. His fingertips touched her lips, smoothed her brow. His head dropped, and he placed a trail of kisses on her neck.
She wanted to touch him, but she knew if she moved, he would vanish, so she held still and let him touch her.
“I miss you,” she breathed into the night.
“Shh,” he hushed, a soft puff of breath against her lips. “I’m here now.”
The urge to feel him under her hands was too much to bear, and she raised a hand to run through his hair, and just like every other time she dreamed this dream, Draco vanished and she woke alone in the dark.
***
Another long week passed, and Hermione began to feel like her skin was stretched taut. She itched and her clothes were too loose or too tight and her hair drove her to distraction and only the thought that Draco had loved her hair kept her from shaving it. She paced outside the courtrooms, let stacks of paperwork gather on her desk, and sidestepped all of Susan’s concerned inquiries. Simple tasks were too taxing, and getting out of bed every morning was like a personal victory. If she hadn’t been so filled with apathy, she would have been concerned for her mental health.
She’d had a life before Draco Malfoy had sashayed across the stage and stolen her breath. She’d had a life with a good job, where she was respected and on track for a promotion to management. Her friends were good people who cared about her and so what if she’d been alone? She didn’t need a man to function. She didn’t. What she did need, though she was loathe to admit it, was Draco. Ginny, in her no-nonsense way, sat Hermione down on New Year’s Eve and explained why.
“We need to have a little chat,” Ginny announced once Hermione appeared through the Floo, a few hours early for the New Year’s Eve party Harry and Ginny were hosting.
Hermione groaned. “Can’t it please just wait one more day?”
“No, it can’t.” With that, Ginny took Hermione by the hand and led her to the bedroom, where she sat Hermione on the bed. She pulled a party dress out of her closet, and as if she were discussing the weather, she said, “You could try to find him.”
Hermione didn’t pretend she didn’t know which ‘him’ Ginny meant. She had not heard from the man in question since he’d walked out of her flat for the last time more than two months ago. Once she’d found his flat empty, she’d not tried to find him. He knew how to reach her, if he ever decided to contact her again. Her hope for that happening diminished by the day, but perhaps he just needed time to sort everything out and once he had, he’d let her know he was okay.
Now, to Ginny, she said, “Why would I do that? Wherever he is, he’s better off than being here. He had no life here.”
“He had you here.”
“Yes, me, who lied to him for the entirety of our relationship.”
“Sometimes when someone runs away, they do it because they want you to come after them.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Hermione grumbled. “What’s the point in that?”
“It means you love them enough to chase after them.”
“I loved him enough to let him go,” Hermione countered. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Undeterred by Hermione’s argument, Ginny continued, “What’s the harm in owling him just the once?”
“He’s been through enough,” Hermione stated. “Besides, Draco didn’t run away so I would chase after him. He ran away so nobody else would find him. I’m sure he made certain nobody would be able to just owl him up out of the blue.”
“Why would he do that? The only person who would owl him would be you.”
“Exactly.”
“Hermione - ”
“Ginny,” Hermione interrupted. “Why are you pushing this? You hated me being with him. I’d think you’d be jumping for joy that he’s gone and not coming back.”
Ginny gave up her pretense of dressing for the party and sat next to Hermione on the bed. “You’re right. I did hate you being with him. I’m still not crazy about the idea of it.”
“Then why - ”
“You glowed when you were with him. And then when he left, it was like that light in you went out.” Ginny held up a hand to forestall Hermione’s protest. “You’re different now than you were before him. Before Draco, it was sort of like you were wandering around blind, even when you were with Ron. It was like you were walking in this haze, doing what you thought people expected of you, like you weren’t even all there. It’s like you were so busy ignoring the past that you couldn’t live in the present.”
Hermione closed her eyes. “That’s what Ron said, too.”
“And then Draco came along and made you remember.”
Hermione opened her mouth to disagree, to say that Draco had made her forget, but she realized that wasn’t true. He had made her remember, and he’d made her realize she couldn’t avoid the past, and she shouldn’t want to. He’d taught her, however indirectly, that her past was part of who she was. In Draco’s case, without that part directing him who to be, he’d become someone else, someone better. In her case, trying to ignore the past had made her someone else, someone worse.
“I know it was hard for you,” Ginny continued. “Knowing who he was and not telling him. But you were happy. It was like something inside you turned on. It was like he made you accept all the parts of you, and you were okay with all the parts of Hermione. That’s why I’m pushing it. I want you to be happy again.”
“I’m happier than I used to be,” Hermione defended.
“No, Hermione, you’re not. Have you seen yourself? Sweetie, you’re a wreck.”
“Thanks,” Hermione grumbled. “I thought it was just me thinking that. How sweet of you to notice.”
“Don’t be that way,” Ginny said. “I’m sorry. But it’s the truth. You’re not happy. You’re miserable. And I know that Draco made you really, actually happy.”
“He did,” Hermione said, unable to keep the wistful tone out of her voice.
“If that’s what it takes for you to be happy again, then, let’s find him. Just write to him, just the once, and see what happens.”
For the second time in a week, Hermione lied, “I’ll think about it.”
Later, at the party, which was crammed full of happy people, some that Hermione recognized from Hogwarts, others from Harry’s Quidditch team, and yet others as Ginny’s fellow Healer trainees, she felt lonely. So when Ron offered her a drink, and at midnight, a rather drunken kiss, Hermione didn’t stop him.
***
“I’m here.”
The whisper came out of the dark. She was dreaming again.
Hermione opened her eyes. Draco was standing in front of the window, backlit by the streetlights. She did not move. She would not move this time. She would stay still and he would stay.
He came to the edge of the bed. She could smell him, and it wasn’t the odor of cigarette smoke and stale liquor. It was the warm, musky scent of oil with a hint of lavender and soap.
“You left,” she said, trying not to move her lips, just in case.
“I did. You understand why, don’t you?”
“I do.” She felt like crying. “But I miss you all the same.”
“I’m here now,” he said, leaning over her. Even though the room was dark, there was just enough light coming through her window so his eyes gleamed.
“You’re going to leave again,” she sighed as his lips found her cheek.
“Kiss me,” he said. “Kiss me and I’ll stay.”
She turned her head to meet his lips, but like the slightest gust of wind, he was gone.
***
Hermione woke to the first morning of the New Year with a raging headache, a queasy stomach, and filled with self-loathing. All-in-all, not a promising start. She rolled out of bed, wincing at the meager light spilling through her curtains, and made her way to the bathroom. A scalding shower did not make her feel any less dirty; it was just a kiss - possibly two; the whole happening seemed a little blurry in the light of day - but to Ron it had been so much more, and she felt like she’d betrayed not just his friendship, but Draco, as well.
She had to admit, the idea of getting back together with Ron seemed so easy, like slipping on a pair of warm, worn pajamas. But it would be for all the wrong reasons, and she’d never really considered the idea. She’d taken advantage of Ron’s honest desire to be with her as a means to temporarily escape her lonesomeness for Draco. She was a horrible person who deserved to be alone.
“Happy New Year,” she muttered to herself. “You freaking ball of sunshine.”
With no real plans for the day, she tucked herself into her sofa, a roaring fire in her hearth and sappy holiday movies on the television. Her flat was chilly; in spite of the cheery fire, the old flat was full of drafts that tickled the back of her neck and caused her to shiver. She pulled a fuzzy red blanket from the back of her sofa and wrapped up in it, bringing the worn fleece up to her face and inhaling. The scent was gone from her bed now; at last she’d washed the sheets and blankets. The pillows, too, had lost the comforting smell of Draco, but this one blanket still retained his aroma, though it was only a matter of time until it faded as well.
After a few hours spent watching the television, Hermione grew restless and wandered to the kitchen, where she pounded on the window frame to unstick it, and then she raised the sash and stepped out onto her fire escape, which was coated in a thin layer of snow. Surprised, she ran her hands over the snow-covered railing, thinking how rare it was for it to actually snow in London, and she’d been too drunk to notice.
It was an overcast, cold day, with low-hanging clouds that threatened to drop more snow on the city. Hermione tugged the blanket around her shoulders up to cover the exposed skin of her neck, and then leaned against the railing. She looked down at the courtyard, the pristine layer of snow broken by a set of footprints circling the frozen fountain. As she gazed down at the yard below, her mind began to wander. As it often did, it wandered to Draco.
Where was he? What was he doing? Had he forgiven her? Did he think of her? Was he dead inside, too?
When Hermione started to shiver, she straightened and made to go inside, but just as she did, she saw a snowflake drifting down from the sky. She waited and watched as more flakes joined the first, swirling and blowing in the icy wind. She reached out and caught one on the tip of her finger and watched as it rested a moment before the heat of her skin caused it to melt. She wondered if it was snowing where Draco was.
***
Several days later, Hermione made her way across the MLE offices to her desk, still shaking rain from her cloak. She’d just had her customary Thursday lunch date with Ginny and Luna, who had blushed prettily and held out her left hand to show the small diamond ring that Dean had given her. They were well suited for each other, she thought. She was happy for them and not bitter in the least, she was relieved to note. Her happiness for them was only colored with the longing to have that type of happiness herself. Ginny had mentioned Ron, had made a veiled threat that another discussion was in order, and then, blessedly, had left it alone in the face of Luna’s glee.
Susan joined her at the desk moments later, her hair ruffled and a scowl on her face. She was grumbling in irritation, and the look she sent Hermione could have cut glass.
“Problems?” Hermione asked out of common courtesy.
“You know, I didn’t want to say anything because you’ve been going through a hard time, and I know that, but you’re a professional. Pull your act together.”
Startled, Hermione froze in the act of taking off her cloak and gawked. “What did I do?”
“You think nobody has noticed that you’ve slipped? That you’re not all there? That you don’t give a flying fuck?”
“Susan, what’s going on?”
“They’re putting you strictly on desk duty, which means I get a new partner.”
“What?” Hermione asked, aghast. “Susan, I -”
“And do you know who my new partner is?” Susan continued, barreling over any apology Hermione might have attempted. Without waiting for a response, she snapped, “Hutchinson, that’s who. Sam bloody-nephew-to-the-department-head Hutchinson.”
“Hutchinson?” Horrified, Hermione turned to look for the new recruit, and found he had squeezed his enormous, bulky frame into a standard size Ministry issued chair and was attempting to read a backlog of folders that needed to be filed away. He looked like an elephant squeezed into a clown car. “No, Susan, just let me go talk to Blackwell. I’ll get this straightened out. I know I’ve been a little out of it lately but -”
“It’s too late for that, Hermione. It’s a done deal.”
“But -”
“He’s going to be a nightmare. You know Blackwell pulled some strings to get him in. There’s no way that dunderhead passed the exams.”
“I know if I just go and talk to Blackwell -”
“Good luck with that. They’re all tiptoeing around you. Like nobody else was ever tossed to the curb. Like you’re some fragile little princess they’re afraid of upsetting.”
Hurt, Hermione pressed a hand to her throat and swallowed. “Susan, enough. I’m sorry, alright? I’ll fix it.” She registered, on some distant level, that activity around them had ceased as people were drawn to their argument.
“Right, Granger,” Susan snorted. “Because you’ve been so good at fixing everything else in your life.”
It was as though Susan had punched her in the stomach. Hermione exhaled and dropped into her chair with a thud.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” Hermione managed. “I can’t bear it if anyone else is mad at me.”
The anger on Susan’s face faltered for a moment, and then she shuttered it into cold indifference. “Maybe we’ll discuss this later,” she said at last. “I have to go train my new partner.” Then she turned her back on Hermione and made her way to Hutchinson’s desk.
She was aware of the unnatural silence of the office, and she darted a quick glance around to confirm that, yes, everyone was staring at her. She tried to hold her head high, but the weight was incredible; all she wanted to do was rest her forehead on the desk and cry. Then, cued by some unspoken signal, her coworkers returned to their duties, noisy and productive. She shot a look at Blackwell’s office; he was standing in the doorway, looking at her.
However, just as he parted from his office door and started the trek to her desk to relieve her from active duty, an out of breath clerk from the courtrooms appeared next to her, panting. Already out of sorts, Hermione was so startled by his sudden appearance that she almost toppled backward out of her chair.
“Afternoon’s case canceled. Wizengamot’s free. Chief Warlock says now’s your chance,” the clerk wheezed. “The witnesses are being gathered.”
Hermione stopped breathing for a moment, and everything seemed to freeze. After all this time, why now? Why when everything in her life was in shambles and she was on the verge of having a breakdown was she being given the opportunity to plead Draco’s case? Sudden terror gripped her. What if she screwed this up for him too?
Hermione sat frozen for another moment, feeling like a rock sinking in the ocean. The clerk jerked her to her feet, impatient. She swayed in shock, and then everything started moving again. She ripped open the lap drawer of her desk and pulled out the copy of Draco’s Ministry file, and then she bolted for the lifts. This, at least, she had a chance to fix. Everything else would wait.
The courtroom, one of the lesser used, smaller spaces, was empty when Hermione burst into it, and for a short, heartbreaking moment, she thought she’d missed her chance. But then the door to the Wizengamot’s chambers opened and the multitude of crimson-robed figures began the slow process of filing into their seats. The seats behind Hermione began to fill with the usual crowd of spectators who hung about the Ministry, waiting for trials such as this one. She spotted a few journalists, and turned away when a photographer for the Prophet snapped a picture of her.
A few minutes later, Harry arrived, still in his Quidditch uniform, his damp hair sticking to his forehead. Ginny entered behind him with Ron, also still in his Cannons uniform. More people she knew began to file in behind Ron: Andromeda, Katie Bell, Professor McGonagall, Madam Rosmerta, and Pansy Parkinson.
Pansy met her eye for a moment; there was something hard and fiery in her stare. Her mouth set in a characteristic frown, Pansy nodded to Hermione and then took a seat in the section reserved for witnesses. Katie Bell and Madam Rosmerta joined her. Professor McGonagall stepped forward to clasp Hermione’s hands with whispered reassurances, and then she took a seat next to Madam Rosmerta.
Harry approached her while Ron and Ginny hung back. “I hope this works out like you want,” he told her.
“Thank you for doing this,” Hermione said, blinking back unexpected tears of gratitude. “I owe you in a big way.”
Harry put a hand on her shoulder and patted it awkwardly. “No. We’re even now.” At Hermione’s confused look, he explained, “After everything you did for me, staying with me and keeping me alive all that time we were… camping, this is the least I can do.”
The Chief Warlock called for the proceedings to begin, and as Harry made his way to his seat beside Katie Bell, Hermione took a fortifying breath. Then she turned to address the Wizengamot.
***
The trial lasted for a day and a half. The witnesses for the prosecution all spoke damningly of Draco; meanwhile, Hermione had Pansy to speak on Draco’s behalf. Then Harry strode to the center of the room and sat down in the chair to face the Wizengamot. The crowd grew hushed as Hermione wove Harry through his six-year relationship with Draco. When Harry spoke of the night Dumbledore had died, the only sound besides his voice in the echoing room was the constant click of a camera.
In the silence that followed when Harry finished his story, Hermione poured Alecto Carrow’s memory into the Chief Warlock’s Pensieve and prodded the iridescent surface to project the image of the memory onto the ceiling overhead. She closed her eyes while the memory played out, not wanting to see it again, but she could still hear, and while Draco screamed and Voldemort laughed, the crowd in the courtroom wept. When the memory ended, Hermione looked at Harry. He was pale, his fingers clenched, white-knuckled, around the arms of the chair.
“Harry,” she said, drawing the crowd’s attention back to her. “Do you think Draco Malfoy should be convicted of the crimes with which he has been charged, based on the testimony we’ve heard and the evidence we’ve seen?”
Harry took a deep breath and flicked his eyes up at the now bare ceiling. “I don’t think I would have done things the way he did, but I’ll never know for sure. My parents were dead before I could remember them. I know if they’d lived, I would have done anything to protect them, though, even if it meant my own life. I would have gone to Dumbledore for help, but I trusted him. Malfoy didn’t have anyone he trusted that he could go to.”
“Harry?” Hermione prodded.
“No. No, I don’t agree with how he did things, but I think it was the only way he knew. I don’t think he should be convicted.” Harry turned in his seat and looked at the Wizengamot. “He’s dead. He’s already paid the price for what he did.”
***
Draco.
Hermione could think of little else as she walked out of the courtroom, still not able to fully grasp what had just happened inside the chamber. Draco had been a constant presence in her mind since she’d stumbled across him in August, and just because he had been gone for over two months, that did not dull the shine of him in her memories.
He was impossible to forget, and she spent her nights remembering. The distinct way different parts of him smelled: his hair a crisp, clean scent; his skin the mixture of lavender oil, soap, and a hint of leather; and his hands, which usually carried the aroma of old books and lotion. The feel of his body pressed against her as she lost herself in him night after night, coming apart for him so he could take his time putting her together again. The ghosting touch of his nimble fingers dancing over her skin, tracing his name into the small of her back. His fascination - love affair - with her mane of hair: how often he would curl next to her on the bed and follow the spirals of curls around and around with his fingers. The way his brows knitted together in a brief moment of concentration when he learned something new. The way he would grab hold of her hand in his sleep and hold it tight against his chest, near his heart.
She never used to believe in soul mates, thinking it some maudlin, silly concept, but now, she thought that perhaps she did.
The bitter tang of his absence was harder to bear today, because now she had no real reason to keep him in her thoughts. She’d fought her hardest to clear his name, and now the trial was over.
It was time to let him go, as she’d promised him she would.
It was harder to let go than she’d imagined, even though he’d left months ago.
Then Ron was there beside her with a comforting smile, shaking her from her thoughts as he tried to take hold of her hand.
“Not now, Ron,” she snapped, shaking him off.
He let his hand drop and his whole demeanor changed. “Ginny was right,” he said, bitter.
“Right about what?”
“She said you wouldn’t want me back. You don’t, do you?”
Hermione wanted more than anything for the floor to open up, for the ground to give way, and for the earth to suck her under. She wished for it so hard that she half-believed it would happen. Ron took her silence for the affirmative, and he shook his head, barking out a hard chuckle.
“I knew it. Nothing’s changed at all.” Looking at her with disgust, Ron turned on his heel and left her standing in the corridor. Harry and Ginny stood back and watched, then with apologetic smiles, they turned and hurried after Ron.
And that was her defining moment.
***
“Miss Granger, I wish you’d reconsider.”
Hermione looked up from her badge, which she held out in the palm of her hand. It was still shiny after all this time - she’d polished it every morning before pinning it to her MLE robes. Her supervisor, a middle-aged wizard with a mousy brown ponytail and matching mustache, kept his hands folded and in front of him on the desk.
“I’m not going to reconsider, sir,” Hermione said, her voice level and flat. Inside, she was seething.
“I understand you are disappointed with the outcome of this trial - ”
“Yes, sir, but I understand you also meant to remove me from active duty, and I’d rather not face that embarrassment as well.”
“We can offer you a raise, your own office, a promotion. We can get you counseling, get you through whatever it is you’re going through right now.”
“I’m not interested in remaining a Ministry employee, Mr. Blackwell.” Hermione deposited her badge on her superior’s desk. As she turned to leave, he shoved away from his desk and jumped to his feet.
“Miss Granger - Hermione, what can we do to keep your services?”
Hermione stopped in the doorway and considered his question. She knew there was nothing he could do for her; he was too far down on the Ministry food chain to offer her what she really wanted. “I’m sorry, sir. There isn’t anything you can do.”
Mr. Blackwell came around the desk and held out his hand, resigned. “You’ve been an asset to the department, Miss Granger. We wish you the best with your future endeavors.”
Hermione returned the polite handshake, though she wanted nothing more than to slap his hand away. But it wasn’t his fault, she knew. She was just angry. “Thank you, sir.”
When she reached her desk, she picked up the box containing her personal effects and shrank it to fit into her pocket. She looked around the office, which was in a state of constant disarray, and felt nothing but emptiness. It was odd; she thought she would feel more after spending three years in one place. But the MLE was part of the Ministry, and Hermione felt no love loss for the organization that governed the wizarding population.
In hindsight, she wished the Wizengamot had just denied her request to give Draco Malfoy his day in court, deceased or not, instead of going ahead with the trial and continuing their unbroken record of being unforgiving and merciless. They wouldn’t even forgive dead men.
She wondered what Susan would think when she came in from patrolling with the rookie trainee and found her ex-partner’s desk emptied.
The clock chimed four times, reminding Hermione she had precisely one hour before the special evening edition of the Daily Prophet announced to the world that the Wizengamot had flexed its iron fist once again and convicted another Death Eater for his crimes. One hour until the world discovered that Hermione Granger had pled his case and failed. And perhaps an hour and a half until somewhere, an owl delivered the news to Draco.
Blowing out a disgusted breath, Hermione swept out of the office and stormed for the stairwell, too upset to wait for the lifts to carry her to the Atrium, where that god-awful statue of Harry beamed down at the bustling crowds. Where was justice in the world when a dead seventeen-year-old who’d been coerced into his malicious deeds was found guilty for no other reason than the Wizengamot could not show any mercy for fear of a mass of appeals from Azkaban?
Her anger only increased as she shoved through the crowds around the statue of Harry. Not even having Harry Potter speak on his behalf had done Draco any good. What would he do when he read of his verdict in the Prophet? He hadn’t even known he was on trial.
There was no line at the Floos at this time of day, so Hermione threw a handful of Floo powder into the flames, shouted her destination, and stepped through the flames. After a few moments of spinning travel, she emerged in her own flat. She disabled the Floo, and threw a chair at it for good measure. And that was when the fury morphed into despair.
It had been her only chance. If only the Wizengamot had exonerated Draco instead of condemning him. She’d hoped - such a dangerous thing, she recognized with bitter acceptance - that if the Wizengamot had been merciful and granted Draco clemency, that he might come back. Now she knew he never would. Never could.
If only she knew where Draco had gone. She didn’t want him to read about his fate in the Prophet, but there was no way she’d be able to find him in less than two hours.
Defeated, she sank onto her couch and buried her head in her arms. She should be attempting to make amends with Ron, should be trying to sort out when things had spiraled so absolutely beyond her control, should be trying to think of a way to fix things, but at the moment, all she wanted to do was sit there and stare at the floor and wallow in her despair.
No job, on the outs with her family, discord among her friends, and a failure at everything she tried, Hermione tipped sideways on the couch and thought how easy it would be to just leave it all behind and start over.
***
She blinked awake; she’d been asleep for hours and her flat was dark, but she knew in an instant that she was not alone.
“Ginny?” she called, rubbing her face and rising from her slumped position on the couch.
“No, it’s me.” The voice came from behind her head, and she froze.
I’m dreaming, she realized.
“You’re not really here,” she said. “I’m still asleep. You’re just torturing me. Well, I’ve got news for you. I’m doing just fine torturing myself.”
Shocked silence met her declaration, and then Draco stepped into her line of view, a solid shadow in a shadow-filled room.
“Think I’m a nightmare, do you?”
“Not a nightmare,” she choked. “Just a silly dream of something I’ll never have again.”
“I’m not a dream.”
“Yes, you are. As soon as I move, you’re going to disappear, just like you always do.”
“Is that why you’re sitting like that? You’re afraid to move? Move, then. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You always say that,” she sighed, but she reached out to touch him anyway.
And he did not disappear.
He felt real under her hand, and warm. His shirt was smooth against her fingers; beneath it she felt his arm muscles flex as he reached out for her.
“No,” she breathed. “You can’t be here. Not now. I’ve ruined it. You’re not here. You’re not.”
Draco caught her hand for a brief moment and dropped it. “Hate to make your day worse, but here I am.”
“Make my day worse?” she repeated. “Don’t you know what I’ve done to you? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Hermione,” he said, and he sat next to her on the couch. Then, “I’m sorry, do we need to have this conversation in the dark?” Sudden weak light flared from the lamp on the table next to the couch, and she winced, shying away from the light. Draco grabbed her chin. “Don’t turn away. I haven’t seen you in months. The least you can do is look at me, unless you find me so repulsive.”
She whipped her head up and around, her protest dying on her lips. He looked like she felt, which was also probably how she looked. Pale. Purplish smudges colored the hollows under his eyes, which seemed devoid of any spark of life. Drained. Defeated. Stubble covered his cheeks and chin, and his once manicured hair was dull as it hung in a shaggy curtain around his face. She doubted he’d cut it once since he’d vanished. Haggard. Hopeless.
And she’d done this to him.
With a moan of despair, she attempted to bury her face in her hands, but Draco stopped her. “Don’t. I want to see your face. I haven’t seen it in so long.”
“Why? You must know what I did.”
“I know. I read it. It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” she exclaimed.
“Draco Malfoy is already dead. What’s the worst they can do to a dead man?”
“There’s plenty they can do to you. Azkaban, for starters. You aren’t dead.”
“No, but Draco Malfoy is. That’s not who I am anymore.” With a haunted look on his face, he said, “I’d hoped to maybe come back one day. After staying away for a few years, I thought maybe I might be able to come back, that everyone would have forgotten my face.”
Hermione didn’t think it was possible that anyone would ever be able to forget his face.
“Or that I would be forgiven, that the Ministry would show a little mercy.” His eyes cleared and he looked at her, then. “But you -”
“I’m so sorry,” she interrupted. “I didn’t think it would turn out that way.”
He ignored her outburst. “You proved that waiting would have been a waste of my time. They never would have forgiven me. I’m unforgivable.”
“No, you aren’t,” she whispered.
“But since I can’t come back, ever, I’ve decided to stay away for good.” He paused, seeming to expect her to interrupt again and point out that his very presence in her flat contradicted that statement. When she didn’t, he continued, “But I needed something first, and it’s something that only you can give me.”
“What?”
“You can make it go all away.”
“What?”
“You can make me forget again. I want you to Obliviate me. I’d rather not go on living like this.”
“No,” she said at once, jumping to her feet and taking several steps back from him. “I will not. I swore I would never -”
“I have nightmares every night.” He stood and followed her to where she stopped in the middle of the room. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I try to stay awake as long as I can, but I have to sleep sometime. And then I have nightmares. Of You-Know-Who. Of my mother screaming in the room beneath me when they kill her. Of Dumbledore - his eyes are gone and his fingers are bone and he reaches out for me - ” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “I haven’t left the place I’m staying in over a month. I’m too afraid to go out - that someone might see me and recognize me and have me sent to Azkaban. I have everything delivered - food, supplies, anything I might need. I have them put it in a box outside where I’m staying - I don’t even let the delivery people see me.
“I’m afraid, all the time, Granger.” He looked at her, desperate. “Hermione - last time you didn’t give me a choice. You just took it away. This time, I’m asking. It’s my choice. Please. Don’t make me remember all of this. I’m losing my mind. Look at me!”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she protested. “Don’t tell me you want to go back to having no idea who you are, lost and alone.”
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t want that. I just want to forget that I’m me, and that the things I remember in my nightmares ever happened. Just - modify my memories. Let me keep some things.”
“It isn’t right. You shouldn’t get to choose what you remember.”
Draco closed his eyes again, wilting. “You told me once - didn’t you - you said something to the effect that it was a good thing I couldn’t remember. Because you knew just how awful the things were that I’d forgotten.”
She did remember saying that. And she could understand his desire to forget. She remembered doing her best to forget but being unable to. What would she forget if she could? The war, for starters. The whole war. She’d forget that Tonks and Lupin were dead, that Fred was dead, that Dumbledore was dead. She’d forget Voldemort and the sensation of the Killing Curse traveling down her arm and out her wand. She’d forget that her parents wanted nothing to do with her.
How much happier she’d be without those memories. They helped shape her into who she was, it was true, but who was she except a disgraced war veteran, with no job, with parents that didn’t talk to her and friends who treated her like she was made of eggshells? Who was she except a depressed, lonely witch that had cocked it all up?
And here, asking her to make him forget, was the only person who could understand. The only person who had been able to shake her out of her doldrums and breathe some life into her existence.
“Alright,” she said at last, coming to a sudden and reckless decision. “But you’re taking me with you.”
“What?”
“Take me with you. I Obliviate you, and you Obliviate me.”
Draco looked relieved, then confused, then relieved again.
“You want to come with me?”
“If you’ll have me,” she said, hoping that he would.
“If I’ll have you?” he repeated, looking like he wanted to laugh. “Why would you want to come with me?”
“There’s plenty I want to forget, too. And - and -” She took a deep breath and then blurted, “And I love you. I miss you. I want to be with you.”
Draco tipped up her chin to redirect her gaze from the floor. Her face was flaming with embarrassment. Then he took a deep breath, and said, “You’ll be Jane. My fiancée.”
Hermione almost laughed at the weight that was lifting from her shoulders. “Was that a proposal?”
“Do you want one?”
She shook her head as he started to get down on one knee. “Propose after. I want to remember that.”
Draco straightened. “Alright.”
“So I go back to being Jane. And you’ll be Damien King again? But not a stripper.”
“No, definitely not.”
“What about the magic?”
“I don’t want to lose that again.”
“I’d prefer to keep it myself.”
“Agreed.”
They hammered out new personal and shared histories over the course of the next hour. They kept it as close to reality as possible, that they’d met at Hogwarts and shared a mutual dislike. But then they deviated, modifying events from fifth year and onward. The new memories would be of them being forced to work with one another on a group project and finding each other not as disagreeable as they’d once thought. It was a bit too cute for Hermione’s taste, but it was effective. Once their new shared history was written out, both studied it until they had it memorized. Hermione could not quite believe this was happening. What would her friends say when they finally came to look for her and found her long gone?
She left Draco in the main room, studying the outline of their new life once more, and she went into her room to pack. Crookshanks darted between her legs when she yanked her trunk out of the corner and upended it, spilling out the contents. The picture of her with Harry and Ron was still stuck to the inside of the lid and she left it. After all, she wouldn’t be forgetting them, just that they were still friends.
Into the trunk she threw clothing and shoes, books and photographs. Then she coaxed Crookshanks into his cat carrier and scooped him up in one hand, dragging the trunk in her other.
She met Draco back in the main room.
“Is that everything?” he eyed the trunk. “You can take more, you know. I did.”
“I don’t need anything else. I have what I need. Everything else I can get later.”
“And there’s nothing here of mine?”
“No, that’s already been taken care of,” she said, “just in case.”
“Right. Good.”
“Ready?” she asked, having a hard time breathing.
Draco touched her face, one finger trailing down her cheek. “I’m glad you’ll be with me.”
Hermione closed her eyes, her throat tightening. “Me too.”
She felt him lean in and then he kissed her tentatively, tenderly. When the kiss ended, he brushed his knuckles against her face and took a step back. “On the count of three.”
Hermione placed her wand against Draco’s temple. He rested his wand against hers.
“One.”
Though she was trying very hard not to think of them, images and memories of her family screamed through her mind, as if they knew they were about to be forgotten and wanted one last chance to be seen. She saw her father holding out his arms to hug her after she’d come home from school full of horror stories about the strange things that kept happening to her. Her mother taking her Hogwarts letter into her hands and reading it, then laughing and declaring it a hoax. Saw them standing at Platform 9 ¾, waiting for her to get off the train. Her mother was beaming a bright, wide smile, and her father was looking around in amazement. The Weasleys were there, as well, keeping her parents company while they waited.
Christmases at home, eating gingersnaps by the Christmas tree and trying to guess what each brightly wrapped package contained. Summer holidays in Greece. The way her father hummed in surprise whenever he read something that interested him. Her mother’s warm eyes, listening with acceptance as she bemoaned the unlikelihood of Ron ever wanting her for more than a friend.
She took a shuddering, watery breath and whispered, “Two.”
Then Harry was there, dancing across her eyelids. Harry and Ginny and Ron and Susan and Neville and Luna and Dean. Luna and Dean would be married and she would miss it. Harry and Ginny would have children and she would miss it. Neville would keep teaching at Hogwarts and she’d never even been to visit him there.
Saw Harry’s wide, unassuming smile, every freckle on Ron’s nose. Ginny’s kind eyes, Susan’s shrewd grin. Thought of Neville’s humor, of Luna’s unique outlook on life. Of Dean’s way of finding beauty in everything.
But then she opened her eyes and looked at Draco. He was looking back at her, waiting for her to finish the count with a grateful smile on his lips and love in his gaze.
She steadied herself then, and said, “Three.”
“Obliviate!”
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