Call Me Psyche - Dramione

7

Hermione stood up from Harry's bedside. He had stopped raving hours ago, stopped crying since then, and had been making normal sleeping sounds for about fifteen minutes now. She didn't want him to wake up after the Godric's Hollow snake attack to find his arms and legs petrified and stuck to his bunk. But she would still wait a bit longer before undoing all the spells.

While he was stable, sleepy, and not demanding answers from her, she grasped at a moment of peace, moving outside the tent where she couldn't see him and all the life and death stakes the Chosen One represented.

Sunrise had not quite begun. The sky was a dim blue, not the inky black of deep night. The moon was full and low to the horizon. She could see her hand in front of her face, gripping the one wand they had left between the two of them now that Harry, overtaken by Voldemort, had snapped his. She shuddered. There was no need to ever tell Harry he had done it himself. She would say it happened in the chaos and destruction of the night before without telling him exactly when and how. It was true enough, and would be easier for him.

The cold breeze, the open sky made her feel lighter, less trapped in the awful moment, like there might be a way forward. But she had no strength for a way forward yet. She was exhausted, and overwhelmed. What she came outside looking for was relief.

And that meant Malfoy. Until she didn't find him waiting for her outside the tent, swooping through the campsite in his massive black cloak, she didn't understand how badly she wanted to see him. She wanted to hear the gossip from the Death Eater party. She wanted to apologize somehow for underestimating how horrific the snake was without admitting she'd seen it herself. She wanted him to feed her an orange. She wanted to serve him tea and while he praised her magic. She wanted to grow warm against his body, to forget herself in kissing him.

She frowned. This was missing him. Missing Malfoy. It was different than missing Ron after he stormed off in a rage. Malfoy's absence didn't feel like a personal attack. Missing Ron hurt more, far more. But she had never craved Ron – or anyone – the way she craved Malfoy. She wasn't sure if he was in her heart yet, but he was certainly in her blood. And after all she and Harry had suffered that night, she wanted the last thing in the world anyone would have imagined. She wanted Draco Malfoy to find her, hold her, bow his face into her hair, call her Psyche, slip his hand along her neck, beneath her hair, tilt her head back, and kiss her.

She shook her head. Bloody romantic notions. No, she wasn't about to call his name into the wind, pining like someone in a gothic novel. But she would stand there in the snow, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her back to the well-concealed tent, and squint into the brightening blue dawn, imagining she was catching glimpses of him through the leafless trees, tall and pale, the worst angel ever.

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Draco was still sitting alone in the manor's library, all six of his school annuals open and strewn across the table. His velvet party jacket was rumpled and open, his white formal tie undone and askew, his hair twisted into a mess of pomade and sweat at the top of his head. In his hand he clenched the Deluminator, his thumb toying with its fuse.

Psyche, Granger, Cupid – whoever she was, he had seen her face, here in these school photos. He'd seen it and ruined everything. Why had he looked? Why hadn't he let it be, like she told him to – like thousands of years of folklore had told him to do? Of course she'd already known how impossibly doomed this thing between them was. And she'd gone and done it anyway, every bit as stupid as he was.

How could she have let him warm up to her, trust her, fall for her like this? And he had fallen. If he didn't care for her, he'd be nothing but angry. But it was more than that. He was hurt, and worried. Maybe she hadn't fallen. Maybe he was alone in this and she still hated him, and that's why she'd hurt him. Was Potter there the whole time, gawking smugly from that hidden campsite that was always at the back of her mind? Were they both laughing at him, taking revenge, springing a trap?