Ultimately

Ultimately

Chapter One

Boys, Hermione decided, caused only stress and pain to a person's life, and what's more, it was usually the ones she cared for most strongly who ended up hurting her most deeply. She was stupid, she knew, for allowing the men in her life to affect her to this extent, but recent situations had nearly brought her glittering reputation amongst her professors crashing down around her. After years of hard work, studying and late night revision sessions, she found herself unable to think, write or even relax without everything swirling around in her head; without his face being there every minute of every day, as though it were a brand upon her eyelids.

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl, Hermione muttered, for allowing herself, usually so in control of everything, to lose her grip on everything including, most frighteningly of all, her own emotions.
On the bright side however, all of this only confirmed what she had suspected all her life; that love was not suited to Hermione Granger.

But did she even love him? How could she be sure either way? She had never been in love, nor had any interest in finding it. Hell, she had been grateful for the mere friendship of Harry and Ron, although she was rapidly re-evaluating even this. Sure, she didn't know all that much about the rules of being friends with another person, but surely they included supporting her no matter what, and if this wasn't a 'no matter what' situation, she didn't know what was. Yes, having thought about it, she was now more sure than ever that this wasn't down to her own stupidity alone; it was Harry and Ron's fault too; for not accepting her choices and her feelings as valid, based purely on their own stubbornness, their own unwillingness to give anyone a second chance.
"Granger!" The sound of her name startled her, propelling her back from her inner monologue, back into the real world of other people. But it wasn't the sudden start she had had which set the butterflies in her stomach into over-drive, although she wished it was as simple as that. No, it was the voice which had called her; his voice. She felt her whole body go rigid, from her fingertips, her shoulders, her chest, right down to the tips of her toes. She had to stay focused, keep a hold of herself. She wanted to run away, back to her bed and hide there, but to do that would be to openly confirm the existence of the tension which was growing between them. So instead, she slowly wheeled around to face him, all the while sucking in a huge, bracing breath of cold air, steeling herself in order that she could speak.
"Draco..." she said, although even to her own ears her voice sounded strained and not quite natural.
"Yeah, hi...erm..." Draco replied; he sounded just as nervous as she felt, and she wasn't sure whether this was a relief or whether it made things worse. "I've been thinking, I think we need to, you know, talk sometime. Talk about-"
"I'm late Draco, I... I have somewhere I need to be, I'm sorry." Hermione said, so rapidly that many of the words crashed into each other, and as she practically ran away, she wondered if she had even been coherent. She should turn back, she thought. She didn't actually have anywhere to be, and he was right, they did need to talk. But it was too late, she thought as she walked away, imagining him stood there as she left him alone in the hallway, still mid-sentence. I'm sorry, she thought. But it's just too hard.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Draco stood there, still reeling from Hermione's latest lame excuses to avoid talking to him. Ever since that evening in the room of requirement, she had not even made eye contact with him without him practically holding her head up with his own hands; and oh, what he would give to be able to touch her, or just to stand as close as they had done that night, in that hazy place in between friends and lovers.
They had been so close that he could feel her breath on his face, prickling warmly over his skin and caressing even his hair. He had wanted to so much in that moment to reach out and grab her hand and never let go. To touch her face, her lips; to wrap his arms around her slender waist and never let go.
You're crazy, Malfoy, he thought to himself. That's one witch who's a lot more trouble than she's worth. He knew all this, had rationalised all these thoughts in his head so many times, and yet she was still there. He couldn't explain these feelings, not even to himself. It was a kind of pull he felt towards her, like if he couldn't see her every day he might struggle to function. He would try to erase her from his daily life by clinging to tedious tasks such as actually doing his homework for once and even spending more time with Pansy. But as much as he liked Pansy's unconditional adoration of him, she paled in comparison. He would notice her move slightly closer to him in class, and he would find himself unconsciously stiffen and lean slightly in the other direction. He knew it was cruel of him, to call her every evening when he failed to summon the courage to go to the Gryffindor common room, or when his visit to the library in the hope of bumping into Hermione there had been unsuccessful. It was cruel and he knew it, but his desperation for Hermione meant he had to be selfish in order to keep himself together.

He snapped out of this nostalgia almost as suddenly as Hermione had made her escape minutes earlier, and he found that being back in the real world made him angry. He swung his school bag up and over his shoulder and strode quickly down the corridor, making a point of bumping shoulders with those who were foolish enough to stare at him as he stood there, alone and rejected.

He arrived back from his class with McGonagall that evening and threw his bag up on the desk in the corner of his room. The breeze that this action created caused a small square of paper to flutter from the desk onto the rug below. His heart leapt up into his throat as he read the words 'Meet me later' written on it in a hand which clearly belonged to a woman. However as he read the name at the bottom of which woman had left it, his heart did a U-turn and plummeted to the very bottom of his stomach; Pansy. He should have known it from the first minute he had read it; he had been foolish to think he could win over Hermione with his stupid stuttering and ramblings which was all he ever did when he actually did get face-to-face with her. He blushed at the very thought of those previous meetings, the awkward meetings, him trying to stay cool, all the while he was screaming in his mind for her to stay, to listen, and for her to tell him that it was okay, that she felt the same, that they would be together at last. 'You're crazy, Malfoy' he thought again.