Changing Seasons

The Green Springs Forth

They had left the lake.

The common room had become their new meeting place since winter had descended on Hogwarts. Throughout the Christmas holidays and into the second term, they sat in front of the fire and enjoyed the peace they had discovered with each other. Things were better, but some things can only be improved with time. They were so isolated from the rest of the castle, she and him, and they felt it deepen by the day.

Not many words passed between them, and most were from Hermione's end. She would sit and talk about her day, her Head Girl duties, even the homework she needed to complete. It scared her sometimes, to think how much he had withdrawn from the world around them. So vastly different from the arrogant, outspoken boy she had first come across at the beginning of their years at Hogwarts. He was so quiet, so much more cautious.

But he would always answer if she asked him a direct question.

He didn't withdraw from her.

Draco would still kiss her sometimes. Usually when she least expected him to, and it did things to her insides, made her feel like she was going insane. And she had so many questions that she knew she would never have the nerve to ask him.

Too afraid of shattering their equilibrium.

But she knew how he felt about her even without asking. She could see the salvation he felt dancing in his eyes when he glanced at her. And the way he clung to her like a lifeline was telling in itself.

Draco needed her.

She did her best to accommodate that, even though her friendship with Harry and Ron was suffering because of it. They had each other plus Ginny and Luna. The war was going in their favor anyway. Draco only had her and she knew it. Sometimes she felt as if he was all she had, too.

They had once retreated to his room when Terry Boot, the Head Boy, had needed the common room for some Ravenclaw gathering he was holding. McGonagall had pulled some strings not long after he'd returned to school so he would have a single outside the Slytherin dormitory. Hermione believed the Headmistress feared the same thing she did.

The other Slytherins would use Draco as an example for his failure.

Upon entering, she had been swamped by waves of green. Everything, from couch pillows to carpet, was painted with different shades of the Slytherin color. It was as if he wanted to wrap himself up in it, as a reminder of who he was and where he came from, even though it seemed like the rest of the world had forgotten.

Hermione found herself changing since that day. Making even more time to be with him, to hold his hand, to just be by his side. She wasn't sure what exactly she was scared of, but she knew it had to do with losing him. That maybe she'd wake up one day and he'd be totally lost to the darkness that appeared to grasp at his edges, and then he'd be gone in the ether where she could not follow.

And she wanted to follow.

She watched as he walked on eggshells all day through classes and ached for him. Every breath she took in his presence made her feel as if her lungs were filled with needles. She just wanted to keep him safe forever.

Small things made her hope for the future. Like when he would smile softly when she went into one of her rants about house-elves and the time he brought her a new quill from his room when she'd broken her favorite one the previous day.

Hermione had a hard time reconciling the boy she knew now to the one that had been. And that's truly how she saw it. Malfoy was gone.

This was Draco.

Try as she might, however, she couldn't help but mourn Malfoy's passing and wanted somehow to resurrect that part of him. The part that could give as good as he got and challenge her until they were both blue in the face. She missed that about him.

The conflict in his gray eyes still raged, but it was a light drizzle now instead of thunderstorms. It soothed her to an extent, but she wanted more. She wanted to calm him, to excite him, to aggravate him.

She wanted an equal.

That's all she saw him as now. The one who held her downfall in the palm of his hands and wasn't even aware of it. Because she didn't fall, she plummeted head first. There was something intangible, something that danced out of her reach, in his eyes, a shining glint, that gave her a secret thrill.

That perhaps he would one day regain his fire.

Then, in a sick twist of fate, he received a letter on Valentine's Day. It contained the news of his father's death in Azkaban. The papers called it a retribution killing.

The glint that epitomized her dreams disappeared altogether.

Draco shut himself away once more, only coming out of his rooms for classes. He stopped speaking completely, not even to her. No one at the castle expressed any sympathy for him, more often saying how he deserved it, and Hermione's heart broke all over again. It was a lesson in human nature she wouldn't soon forget.

For twenty-eight days he locked himself out from the world and she held him every night in his room as he gazed at nothing, too lost for her to connect with him. The next day, he showed up at her common room after dinner and joined her at the window-seat.

On the twenty-ninth day, he cried.

All of the grief, the hurt, and the pain he'd been keeping inside just spilled over from his eyes and washed away his silence. She encircled him in her arms and ran her hands comfortingly through his hair as he let out all the building emotions.

The tightening in her chest gave way, like the laces of a corset had been untied, and she took solace in his release. It was something she knew he needed to do, to succumb to everything he was feeling and let it bring him finality. He could achieve deliverance himself.

She watched the lake from her window as he gripped her sides and buried his tear-stained face in the crook of her neck. The ice and snow from the hard winter was beginning to melt, cleansing the world for renewal. The flowers would begin to bloom and what was brown and dull would be green and vibrant once more.

At that moment, she knew her fierce dragon would rise again.