Appreciating the Sunset

Author's Note: This was written for dmhgficexchange on LJ.

*

"You really think this is going to work?" Malfoy whispered.

"Yes," Hermione replied. Then, more quietly, "It has to."

The scene was set, the players would soon be in place, all that was missing now was the lead actor - No. Not the lead. The villain.

"You've said that before," Malfoy reminded. "In the last two years you've said it at least five times."

"God, two years..." Hermione stopped staring at the evening sunlight playing on the ceiling above the bed and turned her head to contemplate him. "It feels like yesterday."

Malfoy pressed his lips together before responding. "And we thought time would numb the pain."

Hermione turned back to the ceiling. "People think we're mad, you know."

Malfoy laughed, though there wasn't much mirth in it. "Maybe they're right."

"Sometimes I do think so. Two years hunting our dead spouses' killer... what are we doing it for, really? It won't bring them back."

"That's not the point, Granger. It never was."

"Hmm." Folding her hands on the mattress by her head, Hermione rested her cheek on them. "I still miss him, you know."

"I know." Malfoy shifted his position on the bed to mirror Hermione's. "I miss her, too."

"Do you ever talk about her, with your son?"

"Sometimes. If he asks."

"Hmm." Hermione closed her eyes. "Mine never ask." She lifted a shoulder. "Not me, anyway. I think they ask Harry sometimes."

They lay there in silence for a moment, listening to each other's breathing. Eventually Malfoy shifted closer to Hermione, and she opened her eyes to find herself looking into his.

"If this actually works," he said, "What do we do next?"

It took Hermione a long time to answer. She sighed, blinking rapidly as if trying to hold back tears. "Live," she said.

Malfoy watched her watching him. "Do you remember how?"

Hermione moved again to support her head in the crook of her arm, looking back at him. The sunshine filtering through the window reflected off her loose hair and hypnotised him momentarily as she said, "I don't know. I really hope so." She looked away. "Otherwise I might finally curl up and die."

"You can't do that, Granger. Your baby Weasleys would never forgive you."

Her lips twitched into a smile. "There is that."

"I'd be a bit put out too, you know."

Hermione turned her head, raising her eyebrows. "Really, Malfoy?"

"Really. You can't hunt a killer with someone for two years and not develop some degree of affection for them."

"You used to hate me."

"I know. That was before things... happened."

"But..."

Malfoy shifted closer to her again, taking one of her hands in his. "Haven't you ever wondered whether one day we could have something... real?" There was an instant of hesitation before he pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed her fingers.

"I..." Hermione swallowed. "I don't usually think that far ahead."

"It might not be that far ahead anymore."

Hermione studied him, squeezing his fingers. Then she brought her other hand up behind his neck and kissed him lightly on the lips.

Their kisses were never usually tender. Instead they leaned to the frenetic, almost desperate, and their sexual encounters were always selfish first and foremost, each party grabbing physical closeness where they could, reaching for something, anything to fill the aching, bottomless chasms their hearts had become... and leaving emotional closeness abandoned as something now forever unattainable, not worth the pain of pursuing. As if emotional closeness was more a betrayal of their deceased loved ones than any degree of physical intimacy could be. As if their guilt could be assuaged by never loving anybody else...

Oh, the guilt. The first time they had kissed they had been almost overcome by it. The first time they slept together they had both wanted to die.

And yet, lately, it had become... less.

Hermione no longer curled herself into a ball afterwards, clenching her teeth to fight back the tears. Malfoy no longer lay rigidly on his back, staring blankly into infinity.

Instead they now lay as any other couple would, limbs intertwined, lips venturing the occasional kiss.

When had the balance between their pain and their pleasure shifted so? When had they begun to enjoy each other's company rather than endure it as a means to an end?

When had they fallen in love?

Neither would admit it, of course, even to themselves, but it was still there, an unspoken undercurrent in all their interactions.

"Malfoy," Hermione said eventually, pulling her lips from his and resting her forehead against his chest. "Tell me about normal life. I think I've forgotten what it's like."

Malfoy closed his eyes, his lips settling into a smile that she could not see. "Normal life," he said. "Normal life is all the bits we've stopped noticing because we're so focussed on getting our revenge and trying to lay our demons to rest. It's what you get when you take away the secret meetings, the fruitless investigation, the failed plans, the endless quest for closure we've been on since the day they shattered our mundane complacency by telling us that the people we loved most in the world had been killed on the job by an 'unidentified assailant'." He sighed. "Normal life is... doing the dishes. Redecorating the living room. Filling out forms. It's... it's taking your children to the park, buying them ice cream. Celebrating their exam results. It's small talk at supper when your mind isn't on something else. Normal life is getting up in the morning, going to work, getting home and going to bed happy just because you've finished reading a good book. Normal life..." Malfoy looked around for inspiration and his eyes were drawn again to Hermione's hair, coloured a shining red in the fading daylight. "Normal life is... appreciating the sunset," he finished.

Hermione gazed across the room at the window. "It is pretty," she observed, raising a hand to shield her eyes.

"It happens every day, you know," Malfoy said. "We just haven't been noticing."

Hermione was silent for a moment, then said, "No. Not every day. It's happening all the time. The sun is always setting somewhere." She paused, biting her lip. "It's always rising somewhere, too."

There was silence, and then Malfoy said, "If this is supposed to be some deep philosophical musing I'm afraid you've lost me, Granger."

"No, no..." She glanced back at him. "I've just... never thought of it like that before. I mean, of course it's just scientific fact, but... I've never thought about it."

"You've never pondered it deeply, finding new symbolic meanings in it, you mean."

"...Yes." She turned away from the window, edging her body closer to his again. "Precisely."

"I see."

"Mmm..."

"Mmm."

"...Malfoy?"

"Mmm?"

"If this works... let's watch the sunrise?"

"If this works..."

"Yes."

"Alright."

They got up and got dressed as night set in. Hermione picked up her wand.

"Right," she said. "Let's go."