A/N: Chapter 10! Um, also the last chapter… 8O Sorry, didn't give much of a heads up.
And I know I've been a real jerk at uploading recently, school only just ended and the summer homework is flooding my brain and making itself at home. D:
Anyways, enjoy! Again, this is it.
Disclaimer: I've run out of ways to shorten "not mine," so I'm just stating—in a disappointingly normal way—that I don't own anything.
-Sanded Silk-
It was early morning. Lavender and Zabini had just left, and the house was quiet and thoughtful.
All of which was promptly shattered by a harried knock on the door.
Hermione cracked open an eye, too tired to get up from her sprawled position on the living room sofa.
The knock came again.
Sighing with frustration and grumbling about stupid newspaper boys, Hermione got up and slipped her feet into her slippers, before realizing she'd switched them. The person at the door knocked again, quickly, hard. Cursing, Hermione kicked off her slippers and stalked, barefoot, to the front door.
When she threw it open, her jaw dropped.
"Ha…Ha…"
"Hi, Hermione," Harry said, smiling.
"Ha…rry." Expect another visitor…
"Yup, it's me again. Listen, um…is Cho home, by any chance?"
"Cho…" Hermione blinked, then turned her head. "Cho! Someone to see you," she yelled.
Cho was at the door within moments, yawning, hair mussed. "Honestly, who could be this—early—er—" Her eyes widened at the sight of Harry.
Pause.
"Harry?" Cho said, regaining control over her mouth.
"Hi," Harry said.
Another pause.
"Oh! Um, come in! Please. It's cold outside," Cho said, her voice gone high and squeaky. Hermione moved aside robotically as Harry stepped in, smiling and nodding and thanking Cho.
As Hermione was about to close the door, she took another glance outside—and saw Draco, standing on the sidewalk a ways off, watching. When he saw her look over, he smiled, squinting against the biting cold wind, pale hair blowing limply across his forehead and catching the glare of the weak winter sun.
Hermione stared for a minute. Then, regaining her senses, she waved him over.
"Want to come inside?" She asked when he came within earshot. She could see the bags under his eyes, but his face was relaxed.
He shook his head no. "Harry is just dropping by. I'll be helping him settle back down in his house here, and then I'll be leaving for McGonagall's."
"…Leaving?"
"Yeah. Pretty soon, I suspect."
"Soon? How soon?"
"Probably by evening today."
Oh. "So soon."
Draco smiled a small, almost-invisible smile, and tilted his head to see around Hermione. She turned around, saw Cho and Harry standing together with their faces close and their cheeks blushing red, and turned back around abruptly. Draco was looking away.
After a moment of awkward silence, Harry brushed past Hermione, turned back around to smile at Cho and thank Hermione, and left with Draco, walking quickly.
"Sooo, what was that all about?" Hermione said teasingly, turning around with a mischievous grin.
"Hm?" Cho said dreamily, staring after Harry.
"…Nevermind."
-o-o-
Later that afternoon, there was another knock on the door, which Hermione let Cho answer. Mrs. Bertram hurried to the door, and watched, flabbergasted, as Harry escorted Cho out of the house.
"Wait," Mrs. Bertram stuttered, turning around to the rest of her family and pointing after the happy couple. "When did they…? When did Harry…?"
"Oh. Earlier this morning, Harry came and visited. I guess he's done unpacking at his house now, and—"
"U-U-Un-p-pa—" Mrs. Bertram sat down hard in a nearby chair.
"Earlier this morning? I don't remember hearing anyone at the door," Mr. Bertram said thoughtfully.
"Yeah. It was pretty early when he came by," Hermione nodded.
"Wait, so they're…?" Padma trailed off, looking at Hermione with wide eyes.
"Together? Yeah, I guess so," Hermione said, nodding and smiling, trying not to think about Draco leaving. Trying not to—
She had the sudden urge to run to her room.
-o-o-
The next day brought Harry, who was dragging Draco, back to the Bertram house.
Mrs. Bertram, Mr. Bertram, and Padma sat in the living room, conspiring with each other in low tones, while Harry and Cho stood off to the side, nearly in the adjacent room, also talking in low voices. Which left Hermione alone with Draco.
Hermione sat by him on the other end of the living room, awkwardly. For a long time, they sat at opposite ends of the sofa, not talking to each other.
"So. Lavender's all right?" Draco said after a long, long silence.
"Yeah. Um, she's doing well, I guess. Zabini seems…I don't know what to say about him. He seemed all right in front of my family, anyway."
"Of course."
Silence.
"Um. So. How're you?" Hermione said, forcing herself to make eye contact. There were no cheesy sparks or flashy epiphanies, only unfathomable oceans of mellowed grey.
"Well. Now that everything seems to be sorted out, I'll be on my way soon."
"You said that yesterday," Hermione remarked, smiling.
"Yeah, well, that didn't quite work out. Some other stuff had to be sorted out, and then Harry wanted me to stay another night because he didn't want me driving around so much…" Draco trailed off, waving a bony hand around, smiling wearily. He always seemed weary. Hermione wanted to reach over and smooth out the bags under his eyes.
"Are you sure nothing else is up? You look rather dead."
"No, I'm fine. I just seem to always be like this," Draco mumbled, running a long-fingered hand through his fine hair.
Silence.
"Um, about Zabini," Hermione said, wincing at the sound of his name coming from her own mouth.
"Yes?"
"Do you think Lavender will be all right with him?"
Draco looked at Hermione quizzically. "I don't know. I don't think I can ever be sure with him. But…he seemed to like her, if not only because she clings to his every word and smiles at everything he does and fawns on him like he's—er—" Draco stopped, looking sheepish.
"Oh, no, it's okay. Please keep going, actually. Lavender wasn't too open with me about their relationship. And I know Lav, well enough to not be offended when someone else describes her honestly."
"Oh," Draco said. "Well, in all honesty, I think they'll be fine. Come to think of it, I don't remember Zabini ever actually consider settling down with a woman. I mean, he had girlfriends, of course. Several of them. But he never took anything seriously with them."
"And yet he chose to marry Lavender?"
"What's wrong with her?"
"All that air-headedness you were mentioning just now! I mean, she's the stereotypical teen cheerleader from your average love comedy. Anyone who will marry her must be doing so for some other less-ostensible reason."
"Hermione!" Mrs. Bertram scolded form across the room.
"Sorry," Hermione mumbled.
"Well," Draco said more quietly, "from what I could see, she truly liked Zabini. Truly. Not just for his lawyer job, or for his looks. I think she did like something less superficial about him. As for Zabini's feelings toward her…of course, he wasn't too open with me on that. But he didn't show signs of hesitation either."
"So he just…accepted the engagement, like it meant nothing to him?"
"It wasn't quite that either. This is kind of hard to explain. Um…he seemed to feel indifferent towards the engagement, but there were little things I noticed. You know. Glances. Smiles. Things he hadn't done for other women before."
"Really?" Despite her overall dislike for Lavender, Hermione felt relieved that her sister hadn't landed herself in some sort of potentially-abusive relationship. At least, so it seemed.
"Yeah." Draco smiled, which Hermione whole-heartedly returned.
Silence.
"You're leaving tonight, then?" Hermione said.
Draco nodded.
"What are you leaving to do?"
"You know. Work, see McGonagall about some other case involving surgical ethics."
"That actually sounds interesting."
"Believe me, it's not. Especially when you're talking about it with McGonagall."
"Ah. Touché."
Draco smiled, leaning his head back against the sofa and closing his eyes. Hermione pulled up her knees to her chin, and stared openly at his face, the frown lines smoothed out (more or less), the long blond lashes resting against the high bony cheeks.
"So," Draco said with his eyes closed. "Everything okay now?"
Hermione didn't answer for a second, stared at his face for a little longer. When he opened his eyes, concerned at her silence, she quickly looked away.
"Yeah, I guess," Hermione said, studying the snowy scenery outside a nearby window. Draco nodded, and closed his eyes again.
"Sorry, I'm not trying to blow you off or anything," he said, eyes still closed. "I'm just…tired."
"You look like it," Hermione said quietly. With his eyes closed and his frown lines smoothed out and his eyelashes brushing his cheeks, ever so slightly, he looked…peaceful? Harmless? Adorable?
"So how long will you be staying here?" Cho asked Harry, as they stood in the doorway.
"Well, now that we've smoothed things over, I was wondering if we could…um…"
Cho nodded, smiling shyly. Harry ducked his head, a mop of unruly black hair falling over his forehead.
Cho then bit her lip. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah?"
"Why did you leave?"
Harry's smile slowly slipped from his face. He looked away.
"It was because I thought you weren't interested in me. I was afraid that I was…forcing my attentions onto you."
"You thought I wasn't interested?" Cho said, barely above a whisper. She couldn't believe it. All those times, when she'd secretly confided to Hermione just how much she really liked Harry, just how much she loved his quick laugh and green eyes and strange, round glasses…
"Draco actually got me to come back. He said maybe I was a little hasty in judging."
"Really? So it's Draco I should be thanking?" Cho said playfully, smiling. She glanced over at Draco, where he was sitting with Hermione, then quickly turned Harry around by the shoulders so that he could see them too.
Draco was leaning back against the sofa, legs stretched out, eyes closed, head lolling in Hermione's direction. Hermione was leaning against the sofa, knees tucked under her chin, staring at Draco intently. After a moment, she slowly closed her eyes as well, and the two stayed in that position, quiet, close.
-o-o-
Cho popped into Hermione's room after Hermione had changed into her pajamas for the night.
"Sooo. You and Draco, huh?"
Hermione glared over at Cho, then sighed. "I don't know. I think he's still mad at me."
"For what?"
"Um…I didn't tell anyone about this yet, so you better promise not to say anything."
"I promise."
"Okay," Hermione sighed. "A few days ago, Draco asked…asked me out. But I said no, because I believed everything Zabini told me about him."
"…Oh."
"And I refused him pretty brutally, and he left. Then, on the Falls Park trip with Aunt and Uncle, we visited their property—but only because they'd said Draco wasn't home!—and we met his sister, and he was there too, and we hung out for awhile. But then you called us about Lavender going missing, so we rushed home. But before we came home, I talked to Ginny about Zabini, and she told me that…well, that Zabini had lied to us, basically. He's…actually a pretty big jerk. At least, he was. He's done some…ungrateful…stuff."
Cho was frowning.
"But I don't think there's any reason to worry about Lavender being with Zabini now, because when I was talking to Draco this afternoon, he said that Zabini seemed nice enough to Lavender, and interested enough to actually keep her around."
"Wait, Draco talked to Zabini?"
Hermione's heart sank. "Oh crap. Don't tell anyone about this, okay?"
"I know. This conversation never happened."
"Okay. Um. Draco kind of found Zabini and Lavender, at Zabini's aunt's place, and persuaded them to get married and to come back and visit us."
"…Draco? He did?"
"Yeah. Lavender spilled the beans to me. Apparently he paid for all expenses as well. The rings, probably some ridiculous arrangements that Lav had in mind..."
"Why can't I tell anyone about this? I mean, Draco did a huge favor for us."
"He's…too…shy about it."
"…Too shy?"
"Yeah. He hates the limelight."
Cho smirked behind her hand. "Seriously? He wouldn't let you tell anyone because he was too shy?"
"Shhh, yes! Don't tell anyone."
"I won't, I won't. But seriously. Draco was a lot more of a giant teddy bear than I thought he was. Remember how he came to the Wickersons' party all somber and reclusive? Reclusive snothead?" Cho began to laugh.
"Yes, I remember. How can't I? Aagh, this is embarrassing," Hermione mumbled, burying her face into her hands.
"Well?" Cho said after she stopped laughing.
"Well what?"
"Well, what are you going to do about all this?"
"About what?"
"Draco likes you, Hermione. A lot, seeing as he's still talking to you after the whole Zabini misunderstanding."
"Trust you to call this a 'misunderstanding,'" Hermione grumbled.
"I'm being serious."
"No you're not."
"…Okay, you're right. But still. You've got to go after Draco, before he ends up with some other girl."
"But I don't know how," Hermione burst out. She'd been wrestling with this for days. "I don't know how to tell him that I'm sorry and that I would like to go out with him—it would be so awkward, and it would make both of us so uncomfortable—"
"But you have to. You know that."
"I know that I have to, but I don't know how—"
The doorbell rang.
"Augh! I'm in my pajamas!" Both Hermione and Cho cried.
"Um…um…" Hermione ran back and forth in her room, trying to figure what to do. Greeting someone in your pajamas…
Mr. Bertram answered the door. Both girls held their breaths.
"Hermione?" Mr. Bertram called.
"Y-Yes?" Hermione answered, her voice gone high.
"Someone here to see you."
"O-Okay." Hermione took a deep breath and stumbled down the stairs. When she peered at the front door from around the railing, she saw—
Minerva McGonagall.
"Ms. McGonagall?" Hermione said uncertainly. Minerva nodded wordlessly, lips tight, and walked into the front hall without explicitly asking to do so. Behind her stood Draco, looking grim.
"Dr-Draco?"
He nodded at her, despite the nervousness in his eyes, and smiled.
"Mr. Bertram, I'd like a moment alone with Hermione," Minerva said frostily, without looking away from Hermione. Mr. Bertram nodded, unfazed, and left the front hall into the living room, closing the door behind him. Cho wisely stayed upstairs.
"Hermione."
"Yes?"
"I presume you know my nephew, Draco?"
"Um, yes. We acknowledged each other at my grandfather's house—"
"Let me make something clear to you."
"Okay?"
"Do not interrupt."
"Okay…?"
Hermione, suddenly feeling very inadequate in her pajamas and uncombed hair, looked quizzically at Draco. To her utter surprise, he refused to look her in the eye.
"My Draco is of higher standing than you and your family in every way. He is a medical student working for his Masters degree, and is educated in the law as well as any law student. No matter what you think—what he might make you think—you will never end up with him."
Hermione was stunned.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said quietly, "could you tell me what this is all about?"
"Draco hinted to me that the two of you have some sort of…of relationship."
"Of friendship, yes."
"Don't be smart with me, young lady," Minerva snapped. "I know a young lady in love when I see one."
"…Love?" Even in her private thoughts, Hermione avoided that word. She wasn't sure of her own heart; she wasn't sure if she could reliably tell Love from ordinary Like.
"What I came here to tell you is that Draco is engaged—he has been since birth, actually—to my good friend's daughter, from the Greengrass family. I don't suppose you're familiar with Ms. Astoria Greengrass?"
Ms. Astoria Greengrass. It sounded so repugnantly aristocratic. "No, I'm not," Hermione said quietly.
"Well. Now you are. Let me ask you one more thing—"
"Yes?"
Ms. McGonagall glared. "During the course of your…'friendship'…with my nephew, did he ever approach you romantically?"
"What a strange way you put it," Hermione said, smiling dryly. "And…and no, he did not." Hermione's head spun with the lie, though she managed to keep her lips smirking. She could feel the astonishment wearing off, and the anger setting in.
"You'd better be telling the truth, because—"
"Because what?" Hermione's smirk dropped from her face.
"Because your grandfather will never accept your family for the way it is. Did you believe Neville when he came over to your house, saying that your grandfather was ready for reconciliation? Did you believe for a moment that someone as rich as your grandfather would care about his shameful son?"
"I did not, I assure you," Hermione said, smiling coldly. Although she had hoped. "And what does this have to do with why I should tell you the truth?"
"You selfish girl," Minerva spat, seemingly more out of emotion than reason. "Know that if you were to fight for Draco in any way, you will have no one to back you up. No one. Astoria Greengrass will win out over you in every aspect. No matter whether or not you wish to show me the respect you owe me by telling the truth or not, you cannot escape the inferiority of your status."
"Oh, don't worry, I didn't mean to fight for your precious nephew from the start," Hermione bit back. "How could you have believed for a moment that I would want to associate myself with the likes of you? Rich, arrogant, self-entitled, unable to see anything beyond your hawkish little noses. Perhaps, before I met you, I was interested in Draco. But when I met you, you and my grandfather, I knew that I could never force myself to marry into your group, to shame my father in such a way."
Hermione's face was hot. Her heart was rising steadily in her chest, and she was having a hard time preventing it from choking her. Moreover, the look of astonishment—and hurt—in Draco's face was hard to stomach. But when Hermione saw the white-lipped anger and embarrassment in Minerva's face, Hermione felt a rush of adrenaline-powered triumph.
Hermione strode to the door and opened it, swinging it wide. "You have embarrassed my family and myself in every way possible. Please leave. Now."
There was a long, agonizing silence. Finally, Minerva huffed, gathered her coat about her, and swept out of the room.
"Never have I been treated thus in my life," Minerva hissed as she left.
"Yeah? Well, never have I seen a lady of class behave like a spoiled five-year-old," Hermione yelled after her.
Hermione stood there, panting and staring at Minerva's receding back. With a sigh, she turned to close the door, feeling a vicious trembling beginning to take hold of her limbs—and then remembered that Draco was still standing there. She looked up quickly at his face, and saw that it was darkened with confusion and hurt.
"Did you mean it?" He asked quietly.
"Which part? Some parts I just sort of…" Hermione trailed off.
"You said you wouldn't associate yourself with me, because of my—"
"Draco," Hermione sighed. "It's true, your family and my grandfather are rich jerks. But you're an exception. You and Harry both."
Hermione's fingers got tangled in her hair in her distress.
"Regardless of what I said to your aunt just now," she continued, attempting to disentangle her fingers, "I do like you, Draco. A lot. Enough to ignore whatever your aunt might have to say about it. Agh, this sounds really cheesy and pathetic, but I'm—uuugh."
Hermione felt her face turning steadily red, and quickly turned her face from Draco.
There was an awkward pause.
"All I want to know," Draco said quietly, "is whether you'd say yes or not if I asked you to date me."
Hermione threw up her face and laughed a strained, borderline-maniacal laugh, still turned away from Draco. "Whether I'd date you or not? Whether I'd—? With everything you've done—for Cho, Lav—for me—you have no idea—no idea—how much I regret treating you so cruelly that day. I wish—it must sound bad, me saying I like you because of what you did for me, not because of—something deeper—God, when I refused you that day, I knew so little about you. I made so many presumptions that are embarrassing for me to think about now. I wish I hadn't—waited until you did these things for me before I changed my mind—I wish I had been more careful—oh, I don't know. Yes. My answer is yes. Over and over again—"
Draco spun her around and pressed her against the door frame, engulfing her in a tight hug.
"Oh," was all she could manage.
""I was an arrogant idiot too, if you forgot," Draco said, his voice lost in her hair. "I called you dull before I knew you."
"That's nothing compared to—" Hermione broke off, the lack of air forcing her to focus her efforts on freeing her nose.
"I meant to say—oh." Hermione swallowed nervously. "Um, your aunt is headed this way—"
"Shut up. Just shut up for a second."
"Okay."
Minerva high-volume protests slowly faded out of Hermione's consciousness as Draco pressed long fingers into her hair, pushed his chin against her temple. She struggled to gain a little more footing, to not topple over and bring Draco down with her, and in doing so stepped on his toe, and he grunted, and she might have said "sorry," and he pressed his cheek against her hair, holding her close to him, instantly forgetting the pain.
Someone started cheering. Hermione turned her head with some difficulty—Draco wasn't allowing her much movement—and saw Cho standing at the bottom of the stairs with Mr. Bertram, laughing and clapping. Somewhere in the mess, Minerva stormed off, still yelling insanities. Somewhere in the mess, Harry appeared, confused. And somewhere in the mess, Draco tilted his face down, and Hermione leaned her head back, and they kissed.
-o-o-
"Your parents were very kind to let me stay this late," Draco said later that night, sprawled across the largest sofa in the living room. Hermione was sitting beside him, her backside squished onto a small patch of open sofa space.
"Did you try calling your aunt? Or anyone, really?" She asked him. He shook his head no, lazily. With his eyes half-closed and a small smile on his face, he looked really, truly relaxed.
"Didn't think so," Hermione said, grinning. He shrugged.
"Um…so," Hermione said after a beat, "I know this is cheesy and all, but tell me what you like about me?"
Draco's smile widened. He shifted his arm, which was cushioning his head.
"Your hair, for one thing."
"What? My hair?"
"Definitely. Every other girl with hair like yours tries to straighten it, but you don't bother. I think it looks good, actually. I don't get why girls try to straighten their hair all the time."
Hermione put a hand to her hair, suddenly self-conscious.
"And I like the way you handle stressful situations. Like that time when your grandfather asked you to play the piano, and you just sat there and played something random and said it was by Bernini."
"And you know who Bernini really was, right?"
"The Baroque sculptor? Yup."
Hermione smiled sheepishly. Her hands wandered from her hair to his hair, then to his cheeks, then to the bags under his eyes. She spread out her fingers, smoothing the dark circles, just the way she'd wanted to before.
"I never did say sorry," he said suddenly, "did I?"
Her fingers froze on his cheeks. "What? What for?"
"I judged your sister prematurely, without knowing her character, and I allowed things to get out of hand with my Aunt, to the point where she came here to harass you in the middle of the night." He frowned then, the contentedness slipping from his face.
Hermione frowned at him. "I will not let you apologize to me for those things when you have more than made up for them. And I judged you prematurely as well, so we're even on that point."
"Still, it doesn't excuse—"
"Stop talking. Just stop talking."
Draco reached his free hand up to his face, covered her hand with his. "You are too generous to overlook my mistakes."
"Don't you dare call me generous, or I will have to think that you are mocking me."
Draco closed his eyes and breathed a long, contented sigh.
"Do you think your parents would mind if I slept here?" He asked presently.
"I don't think so." Hermione shook her head no. She watched as the tension in his face, the tension that she could not remove with her words, melted slowly from his muscles, giving way at last to his exhaustion. She followed the disappearing layers of tension with her fingers, smoothing out the hairline wrinkles they left in their wake, wishing that he wouldn't take the burdens of others upon himself.
She suppressed an embarrassed groan then; to think that, at the beginning of their acquaintance, she was ready to accuse him of shunning the needs of even his closest friends and family!
"Well, then." Draco opened his eyes a crack to smile at her. "I think any minute now, I'll just black out."
Hermione piled her elbows on his chest and leaned her head down on her arms, smiling at him. "Go ahead. I'll just sit here and stare creepily at you."
Draco smiled, and closed his eyes. When Hermione was sure that he was sleeping, she gently laid her head across his chest, and peered over the top of the sofa to watch the first straggling snowflakes of a snowstorm flutter down from the sky.
A/N: So it looks like this is the end.
Whoa, this is really surreal. I'm done! With a story! Haven't accomplished that since forever. XP
Anyways, thanks to everyone (especially a certain someone who, at this point, doesn't have to be named anymore—everyone should know who I'm talking about) for your support! I hope to write another story soon. Once summer homework is out of the way and stupid science program is through the window.
Thanks again! Esp. MegAnne Cormack. I really enjoyed having your reviews to propel me through this entire shebang, really truly did.
Love you (all),
-Sanded Silk-