So Long Sweet Summer

Chapter Six

Konstantine

What was it that was drawing him in towards Hermione? Maybe it was because his view of her had always been so one-dimensional. He had never seen her as a real person before; a person with depth. Perhaps it was the new persona he was seeing this summer. She was more carefree, but yet darker. He could tell she was marked in some way - scarred. Was it merely the loneliness she felt from the absence of her friends? Maybe the rejection they had bestowed on her?

Could it be the pride she held for her parentage? Most dirty blooded wizards he taunted always seemed to be embarrassed and ashamed when he made remarks about them. Hermione stood up for her family, something even he didn't do too often.

Draco found himself pondering these thoughts as he walked along the lake at dusk the evening after the race. When he passed her cottage he stopped, staring at the small dwelling for several minutes with his brow furrowed in thought.

Why was it that she so seldom left his thoughts these days? She intrigued him; that he would acknowledge, but he still hated her. Draco couldn't help remember the line he heard once many years ago.

"Mother?" a young Draco questioned.

"Yes, love?" she replied turning away from the frosted window she was gazing out of. The pure white of the snow falling behind her made her skin look less pale. In that moment Draco didn't see his mother as ice, as the Snow Queen. She was real to him.

"Do you hate him?" he asked tentatively, fiddling with his fingers and staring at his feet.

"Who, Draco? Who do I hate?" she said, her eyes confused but concerned.

"Father," he stated quietly, daring to look up in her eyes.

She morphed back to a statue then, her eyes turning cold, to the way he was use to seeing them.

"You'll learn soon enough, Son, that there is a fine line between love and hate."

Narcissa had turned away then and resumed staring off into the distance. Draco turned away embarrassed, upset for he thought for a fleeting moment his mother had cracked her shell, upset because he couldn't keep her that way.

'There is a fine line between love and hate,' she had told him. Could it be true? Could it be that he finally understood what his mother spoke so many years ago? No, he didn't love Hermione Granger, which would be absurd - impossible. Draco Malfoy didn't know true love; he couldn't fall in love so quickly. But he didn't hate her. He didn't think he even just disliked her anymore. He was curious however, he wanted to know more and truly understand the witch before he admitted anything more to himself.

A sound reached his ears then, as he stood outside her cottage. The sun was getting lower by the minute, casting a pink shadow across everything by the lake. Draco could hear soft music and something else, something he couldn't identify. He didn't question for a second as to where it came from. Of course it was from her place.

He stalked quietly across the garden, being careful not to make any noise to alert her that someone was approaching. Draco peeked in the kitchen window first, but although the noises were louder then, she wasn't there. Moving to the left, he skirted a flower bed and turned the corner of the house. Just in front of him he saw a window thrown wide open and he knew that in that room was most definitely the source of the music. But was Hermione in there as well?

Draco stole a glance around the edge of the window frame. It was a bedroom; that much he could see, a very messy bedroom at that. Clothes were strewn about the room haphazardly, one chair in the corner barely distinguishable underneath the material. He could see a closet on the front wall, its folding door half open. Photos were stuck in around the edges of the frame, the smiling faces of Potter, Weasley, and an array of other Gryffindors smiling and waving from their frames. In the closet, he could see a stack of magazines spilling over from an immense pile, but for some reason the pictures there weren't moving.

As he inched further along and allowed himself to see into the room more, he saw a poster mounted on the wall of the Bulgarian Quidditch team, signed by all the players. Beside it, a bookshelf was practically groaning under the weight of all her books. Some were lying on the floor around it, some lying upside down, but open, others face up as if they were just being read. Perched on the top of the bookcase was the same sort of box that had been playing music the first time he saw her that summer. But instead of the loud, fast paced music from before, this song was quiet and slow, more piano than guitar. It was sad and depressing, not upbeat and fun.

Moving directly in front of the window, he saw her finally, slumped in a chair with her head resting in her arms on a desk against the back wall. Draco knew what the strange sound was now. He could see her shoulders shaking, her chest rising and falling shakily. Hermione was crying.

"They'll never hurt you like I do..." sang the voice from the box. At this line Hermione shuddered as her body was wracked with sobs.

The sight tugged at his heart, anything was better than seeing her like this. But Draco didn't do comforting. He didn't even know where to begin. So he did what he knew how to do best.

"Still mourning after Potty and the Weasel then?" Draco drawled, leaning casually against the window sill.

He saw her stiffen and slowly raise her head, her back ramrod straight. Eventually her head turn to look at him and he almost blanched at the sight of her red, puffy eyes, her tear stricken cheeks.

"Sod off, Malfoy," she spat through clenched teeth.

He could see the flash of anger in her eyes. Draco almost sighed with relief. An angry Hermione he could deal with, but a depressed one; never.

Draco cocked his head at her. "I think I'm quite comfortable here, thanks all the same."

Before he knew what was happening, Hermione had seized a glass of water from the corner of the desk. With a growl, she hurled the glass at the wall beside the window. He saw a flash of white as she bared her clenched teeth at him. Draco started as he heard the glass smash against the wall just to the right of his ear. Looking up, he saw her standing there panting in rage, fist balled at her sides.

But he couldn't allow himself to be frazzled. "You seem to be breaking quite a few glasses these days, Granger," Draco remarked with a raised eyebrow. Reaching into his robe he pulled out his wand. A quick wave and a 'Reparo' and the glass was back together again.

He looked up in time to catch Hermione's rolling eyes and exasperated sigh as she bit her lip. Sinking defeated down into the wooden chair, she looked up at him. "What will it take to get you to bugger off?" she muttered in a small, defeated voice.

He beamed a hundred-watt smile at her. "Tell me what's wrong, Granger, and I'm as good as gone. Just don't say 'nothing'. And don't try to lie either, I'm pretty good at Legimency if I do say so myself," he remarked titling his head back arrogantly and sneering at her.

Hermione looked up at him with a tiny sarcastic smile. "I wasn't going to say 'nothing', Malfoy."

He gave her a mocking nod. "Continue on then," Draco prompted.

"What do you care anyway?" she asked, lifting her chin up and glaring at him.

Draco opened his mouth as if to reply, but he had no idea what to say to her question. Luckily Hermione held out her hand at him to stop. "Don't say anything, Malfoy," she said with a shake of her head. "I need to talk to someone about this; I don't know why it must be you, but I don't have much of a choice of people right now anyway."

He didn't say anything, but nodded for Hermione to continue.

Sighing, she started to speak. "Well I mentioned before that Ron supposedly overlooked inviting me to the burrow." Draco nodded again. "Well to tell you the truth, I was supposed to be going to Bulgaria this summer to see Viktor."

Draco was shocked. He had known she went with the Quidditch player to the Yule Ball in their fourth-year, but he had no idea that their relationship went beyond that.

Luckily Hermione missed his surprised look and continued her story. "We had sort of been involved. I visited him for a few days at the end of last summer and we've been exchanging letters since fourth-year." She took a deep breath then, inhaling shakily. "But then Viktor informed me at the end of this year that it would no longer be possible for me to come visit him." Hermione sniffed and closed her eyes. "Essentially that he was breaking up with me - he had fallen in love with someone else."

He imagined that his face looked quite a bit like a goldfish's then for his mouth was agape with shock. Why would a mediocre looking Quidditch player (although Draco had to admit Krum was by far better than mediocre at Quidditch), dump an incredibly smart, gorgeous witch like Hermione?

'Wait,' Draco thought. 'Rewind! Did you just admit that Granger was gorgeous? Did a piece of glass get embedded in your skull?!' He almost smacked himself for thinking such things then, but Draco noticed that Hermione had begun to resume her tale.

"When Molly Weasley heard, she insisted that Ron invite me along to the Burrow," Hermione continued with a sniff. "I declined of course; a summer spent as a fifth wheel with Ron, Padma, Harry, and Parvati, didn't seem like much fun. So instead I came along with my parents up here. I haven't heard from any of them - Viktor included - since the school year ended."

She looked up at him then for the first time since she began to tell him her story. He didn't know what was going through her mind as she looked at him with his eyes wide in shock.

Hermione turned away quickly, but Draco had seen her face flushing in what had to be shame. Hermione Granger ashamed? She was never ashamed of herself - ever.

"Just go away, Malfoy," she said quietly. "Just leave me be."

Draco found his feet moving away from her window then as he made his way through her garden to the path by the lake. He couldn't believe what she had told him that night. It had grown dark as she spoke and Draco could just make out the flickering lights of the Manor on the hill across the lake. Slowly, he retraced his route around the lake back towards home.

He was dumbfounded at finding out that the so-called Golden Trio was so flawed, so torn apart. And it seemed as thought Potter and Weasley had no clue, no inkling that their friend was in pain, that they were the ones who were pushing her away.

Draco wasn't sure when the two boys would realize what they were doing, but when they did they would regret it. And Draco knew that when they finally came to terms with reality, it would be too late.