Insomnia

All I Ask

All I ask is to live each moment

Free from the last

Take the road forgotten

Don't leave me here

Oh please let me stay

Far from familiar things

All I ask is to live each moment

All I ask is to live each moment

Free from the last

Strange roads going nowhere in particular

All I ask is to live each moment

All I ask is to live each moment

Free from the last

Free from the last

All I ask

"So, are we going to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"How we got here."

The question hung in the air like a neon sign, garish and unavoidable.

Hermione looked Draco straight in the eye. "How we got here," she mused. "You know, it wasn't the day I started at Hogwarts, or the day I became an Auror. It was the day Germany fell. That's what started it."

Draco remained silent, letting her talk.

"I think that was the day it hit me."

"What?"

"That not everything in this world is good, and that it doesn't always happen for a reason."

She took her eyes away from his and sipped her coffee. Draco sighed.

"I figured that out a long time before that day."

"When?"

"Oh, not at any particular time. It was more of a gradual thing. May 28th just proved it to me."

An introspective silence came over the two lonely figures on the battered green couch. Hermione's cat chose that moment to spring onto her owner's lap and gaze balefully at Draco. Hermione absentmindedly stroked the cat's thick grey coat. Draco reached out to pat her, and was rewarded by a hiss, then the cat retreated away from him as far as she could whilst remaining on Hermione's lap, growling at him and regarding him with an angry distrust.

"Naughty Sylvia! Draco's our friend." Hermione looked at Draco apologetically. "Sorry about that. She doesn't like strangers. And there are probably less than ten people who come here."

Draco smiled dismissively, "Don't worry about it. And at least she's got personality." He paused, and grinned. "But why 'Sylvia'? What did she do to deserve that?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and swatted him. "Sylvia Plath. She's a Muggle poet, you philistine."

"That's a bit better."

"She committed suicide."

Draco laughed. "That's cheery."

Hermione gave him The Look. "Shut up, you. Ginny gave her to me for company after...you know. And I wasn't very happy."

The shift in the mood was tangible. Draco felt a wrench in his guts for bringing it up.

"I'm sorry."

Hermione smiled weakly. "You weren't to know." She took a deep breath. "Anyway, Syl's a good cat. She keeps me company."

Draco wanted to change the subject. "How is Ginny these days?" he said with a forced note of cheeriness in his voice. Hermione looked at him sadly.

"She makes my life look like a day at the beach." Draco mentally flagellated himself for steering the conversation into these murky waters. "She's living with Fred and George in the flat above their shop in Diagon alley. She does the books for them."

Draco sighed. "That whole thing was such an awful mess, wasn't it?"

Hermione nodded. "It's been worse for Harry. He's trying to deal with all the terrible things he saw during the war, as well as losing his family all over again." Her voice cracked a little. "To tell you the truth, I hate Voldemort far more for what he did to Harry than what he did to me. Twice that monster took everything away from him."

Draco reached over and awkwardly patted Hermione's hand. "You know, you were just like this at school. Always looking out for him and never worrying about yourself."

The recollection made her smile, just a little. "Well, he needed it, didn't he? The two of them, always thinking everything was this wonderful adventure and never thinking about the consequences..." her voice trailed off, and her face changed. "That's what it was like, during the first bit of the war. They were so excited about it. A bit scared, too, at first, but then... Do you know that Harry asked Ginny to marry him on the day we all left for Germany? He was so excited at the prospect of bringing down the Death Eaters."

Draco grinned. "I remember. He and Ron were both like that. That night we arrived in the little Wizard village, when we'd been in Germany about a month, and they got blind drunk with the people in the resistance, and ended up trying to teach them English for when we evacuated them to England the next day?"

Hermione's face lit up in recollection. "I remember that! And the only things they ended up teaching them were really rude Quidditch songs!"

Draco was laughing very hard by this point. "And the next morning, when the others came back and they stumbled out of the pub! Sirius could've murdered them."

"He almost did! They told me afterwards. He dunked them in the village pond to sober them up." Tears of laughter were in her eyes.

"God, those were the only two people in the world who could make war fun."

Hermione smiled fondly. "Yeah." Then her expression shifted to one of sorrow. "Harry's totally changed, now. He only remembers the bad parts."

Draco nodded. "Don't we all?"

Biting her lip, Hermione looked at him, her eyes filling with tears. "We saw things nobody should ever have to see, Draco. You and I and everyone who went there lost people. And we lost our joy, too." She gripped Draco's hand. "It's all I think about now."

"Oh, Hermione." Draco looked at his former colleague, sitting on a cheap sofa, banishing the night's alcohol consumption with coffee, and looking as fragile as anything he'd ever seen. For the first time that night he noticed how skinny she'd gotten, huddling in her homemade jumper with her shoulders shaking and a look of pure misery on her face. She was a world away from the strong woman he'd worked and trained side-by-side with for all those years. He couldn't believe that this was the girl who had slapped him once back at school, the woman who had rescued an entire German village from the Death Eaters only hours after her lover and their best friend had gone missing, presumed captured. An overwhelming urge to cradle her in his arms like a child came over him, and he suppressed it. It would lead to the wrong kind of comfort.

Looking out the window, he noticed that the sky was beginning to lighten and that the sun had almost appeared. The street lamps were turning off, and cars hummed past. Cursing, he checked his pocket-watch. Nearly seven o'clock.

He stood up, stretching his arms above his head. "I should go. It's really late, and I've got work."

Hermione nodded. "Of course." She stood up and walked him to the door. At the doorway, they paused and turned to each other. Hermione looked at her guest, and smiled at him. "Thank you for coming here, Draco. I needed to talk to someone." He dismissed this with a wave.

"Forget about it. I enjoyed it too." He paused, and then spoke up. "You know, I haven't talked with anyone about this like I have tonight. It's been wonderful. I think we should do it more."

Hermione looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, you're right. It's good to talk to someone who isn't trying too hard to stop you being depressed."

Draco grinned at the memory of all the counselors they'd had to visit after the war. So touchy-feely, and not one of them understood any of it.

"Look, would you like to come over for a chat some time? Or dinner?" He smiled winningly.

Hermione nodded. "Yes. That would be lovely. Anyway, my mother says I should get out more."

"What about Friday?"

"Friday would suit me very well."

"Send me an owl, and we'll sort out the details."

Hermione opened the door, letting in the sounds of London waking up, as well as a rather sharp early morning Spring breeze.

Draco grinned at her, and leaning over, kissed her on the cheek. The sudden, very human contact surprised her at first, then sent a wave of comfort through her.

She gazed at him contemplatively, and smiled, silently thanking him. He nodded in understanding.

"I'm glad I saw you again, Hermione."

He turned and walked off down the street, and Hermione went inside, feeling better than she had in years.