Run to You

Run to You, by Dark Fairy of the Wood

"Hermione and Harry: a match, if not made in Heaven, certainly made in Dumbledore's office, which some fools would regard to be the same thing." Dark Fairy of the Wood

She says her love for me could never die,
But that'd change if she ever found out about you and I...

I know Hermione loves me; she's said it many times since our sixth year, when we finally got together, right after she broke up with Ron, after their brief summer fling, while the war was in full swing and my mind was more than numb from all the visions, nightmares and guilt. That's my excuse, anyway.

Hers is better: she loves me. She loved me since our first year, if what she says is true, and she continued loving me through all my troubles, through all my trials... She loved me when the Ministry doubted me, she loved me when everyone thought I was Slytherin's Heir, she loved me after the Triwizard Championship, she loved me when I came back from my glum summers, she loved me when I played Quidditch instead of going to the Library, she loved me when I tried to push everyone away in horror, she loved me when Ron hated us both, she loved me when I came back, almost dead, from the Final Battle. She has stuck with me through thick and thin and I am more than thankful for that.

Would her love die if she ever found out about you and I? I suppose it would...Loving someone even though that person has to face innumerable troubles is one thing, but loving someone that is cheating on you with the one person she hates... I know I shouldn't be doing this to her.

Oh - but her love is cold.
It wouldn't hurt her if she didn't know, 'cause...
When it gets too much
I need to feel your touch

Your touch. You have no idea how much it affects me, do you? Oh, but you probably do, and enjoy it immensely. I can see it in the satisfied smirk you wear when I rest panting in your arms, after one of our late-night meetings. The smirk that appeared in your face after the first time I kissed you, in our seventh year, just before I left to battle my life out against the most powerful wizard on Earth, and that hasn't entirely disappeared since.

I burn by your side, but her bed is nothing by an empty wasteland for me. Her comforting hugs, her passionate kisses, her affectionate caresses, all of them together can't compare to those ghosting touches you give me with the tip of one of your ivory fingers, running down my naked back and setting my whole body on fire.

I've always run to you when the world threatens to finally be too much for me to carry. Before the final show-down with the Dark Lord you feigned to adore, for example. That night, after Dumbledore had given me his famous speech, I trudged back to Gryffindor Tower with defeat hanging from my shoulders. And I found you in a moonlit corridor, leaning against the cold stone floor with that typical arrogant attitude that attracted so much attention from everyone; you were looking so strong, so calm, just standing there with a cigarette hanging from the corner of your lips, and I couldn't resist a talk, thinking it could very well be the last one.

"Ready to go, Potter?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"No need to sound so enthusiastic."

"Am I supposed to sound enthusiastic? I don't remember seeing that in my contract."

"Aren't we a little ray of bitter sunshine tonight?"

"As if you'd care."

"And who says I don't?"

I stared at you, but you held my gaze challengingly, daring me to read something in those words, daring me not to.

"I better go and get some sleep."

"Dream of me, then."

"Pardon?"

"You heard me."

"Why would I want to dream of you, Malfoy?"

"You mean you wouldn't?"

"I really should go now."

"Then why aren't you moving? Could it be that you don't really want to go?"

"....."

"Come here."

And my breath caught in my throat when I saw you there, bathed by a white light, your arms open in a welcoming gesture I doubted I'd ever get to see. Suffice to say that I gave that decisive step that separated us, and the rest is history.

I'm gonna run to you
I'm gonna run to you
Cause when the feelin's right

I'm gonna run all night
I'm gonna run to you

We never really separated after that, did we? Even though you went into hiding for a few months, and I spent weeks in St Mungo's first, and afterwards in the hundreds of celebrations and awards organised for me, we always found the time for a brief rendezvous in a shady alley, a few stolen kisses at mid-night. When the dust settled down, and everything went back to 'normal', as normal as life can be for me and you, we fell into a rhythm of escapades and risky encounters that always left me wanting more.

She's got a heart of gold, she'd never let me down
But you're the one that always turns me on
You keep me comin' 'round...

Hermione would die if she ever found out. I don't even want to picture a best-case scenario, knowing that it would be like driving a knife through the heart of the one person that has cared for me during all my life, passionately and without waiting for a reward. The one person besides you, I should say. Funny how many people never in their life find one willing heart, while I've been blessed with two. And what should be a blessing has turned into a curse, worse that the Cruciatus... If I had never met you, if I had never known the taste if your kiss, then I would have settled contentedly with Hermione, thinking that *that* was what happiness felt like. But after one kiss, after one moment of ecstasy, I knew that love was something entirely different, not the warm contentment that I felt by her side, but a feeling that left me breathless, undone, dead and reborn.

Only you can do this for me, and you know it entirely too well. You take advantage of the fact that I love you desperately to keep me tied by your side, to keep me coming back for more, to own me. And I can't help but feel that this is the way you have to show me you love me too, to show me how you need me. Because you love me too, don't you? You've never said it, not even in our most intimate, most passionate moments, but there are times, when you think that I'm not looking, that your eyes melt into blue pools, and I know that I'm more than a brief affair to you, more than just a challenge you enjoy.

I know her love is true
But it's so damn easy makin' love to you
I got my mind made up
I need to feel your touch

Every time I get dressed to Floo back to Godric's Hollow I feel a swirling void in my chest, and I have to steel myself not to run back to your arms, and convince you to never leave the small hotel room we're at. When I step into the fire, and give you a last glance, you robes still not completely done, you hair mussed up, your hands checking that nothing incriminatory has been left in the bed, I know that whatever promises I make when I see Hermione again will be erased by the never-ending thirst I feel for you.

Sometimes, when I lay in bed, with Hermione sleeping soundly at my side, I think that things should be different. I dream that by a strange twist of fate I could leave Hermione unscathed, you could divorce Pansy, and we would be able to live together in the Manor, with Andrea and Sylvia, your children, the little boy and girl you adore and who resemble you so much, and we would make a happy family (albeit a weird one). But it's foolish and dangerous thinking, because it can never happen.

So I'll keep on playing this charade for the world, waiting for the moment when I can run back to you and stop pretending. Do you think it'll last? Do you think it'll ever stop? Do you think we'll ever be happy? I don't dare answer my own questions, and I don't dare asking them to you... maybe I'm not as brave a Gryffindor as everyone thinks I am.

You mutter something in your sleep, and I hold you tighter, afraid of you waking up and telling me you have to go, but you don't. Instead, you open one silver eye and dedicate me a charming grin under your ruffled bangs. I feel my heart melt at this simple gesture, and it must show in my face, because you grin only gets wider, and you push up on one elbow to plant a small kiss in the tip of my nose. Why are you behaving so tenderly? I feel the cold hand of anticipation catching my heart in a death-grip as I observe how you relax back in the mattress and start searching for something in the robes that lay discarded on your side of the bed.

I'm gonna run to you
I'm gonna run to you
Cause when the feelin's right

I'm gonna run all night
I'm gonna run to you...

There's something different in the air, I can feel it. The instinct that has kept me alive through all the foolhardiness I have displayed is going haywire now, my body tensing, preparing itself for a nasty blow or curse; but nothing can prepare my heart for whatever you're about to do, you've already gotten past all the barriers I could ever put up.

What is it you hold in your hands now? A piece of parchment, folded in two, and you're offering it to me. I don't want to take it, but you're insistent, daring me with a smirk to show my cowardice. My hands are trembling as I open the crinkly parchment, and the letters are blurred for a moment. Slowly, they begin to make sense: is this what I think it is? A contract asserting your ownership of a small villa in Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Neufchatel, and a smaller slip of parchment, telling me you have booked four places on the 5:45 Portkey to Berna. I look at you, uncomprehending.

You give me yet another piece of parchment, silently enjoying my confusion. I recognise Pansy's handwriting, the flowery script of the love-letters you used to lit your cigarettes in Hogwarts. But this isn't a love-letter. In this, she says that she makes null and void all her rights over you and your children in exchange for a monthly pension of very many Galleons. The pieces of the puzzle start to arrange themselves in my head, but I refuse to read them, and instead choose to look at you. Your gaze is challenging, a bit distant, but I haven't loved you all this time for nothing, and I can see the hope, the fear and the love hidden in those silver depths. Along with a bit of impatience as I take my own sweet time to make sense of what you're offering me.

Can't you see that for me this is like jumping out of a bridge? I'd be throwing everything away, my job, my reputation, my friends, my family, everything I have worked so hard for. The reward is great, that is true, but...Draco, I'm afraid. You can see that, and your eyes soften ever so slightly. You're afraid too now, afraid I'm going to reject you like that time you offered me your hand on the Hogwarts Express. You were left so vulnerable that time, but it'd be a thousand times worse now. You have a lot to lose as well, I can see that now, and yet you're willing to risk it all for me.

My eyes are brimming with tears now, and I curse myself for being so stupid. In the space of a heartbeat I'm holding you in my arms, fiercely kissing you, startling you for a moment before you began to respond with equal enthusiasm.

I'm sorry, Hermione.