Memoirs of a Dragon Lover

Memoirs of A Dragon Lover

Chapter Two - Before the Beginning

'I'm sinking slowly,

So hurry hold me,

Your hand is all I have

To keep me hanging on' - Michelle Branch, 'All You Wanted'

"Please don't go. I love you."

"You don't love me Hermione. You see only the outside of me. You can never understand what's inside of me. In here." He pointed to his head. "And never, ever will you understand what's in here." He pointed to his heart.

My eyes stung, as tears bubbled up into them. He couldn't mean that, he just couldn't.

"You don't mean that. Of course I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I do..."

He interrupted my desperate pleading, by pressing a finger firmly to my lips. "Hermione, we weren't meant for each other. You wouldn't be happy with me."

"But I love you!"

He turned then, his face set, and he walked from the room. He didn't look back.

"So that's it then?" I whispered to his back. The only answer I got was silence.

I felt ill. All of the repressed emotions inside me came tumbling out. I choked. I cried. I tried to stop. Bile rose in my throat. Putrid, bitter, mirroring what I felt. I leant my back against the undressed stone of the wall. The frigidness of the rock making me feel better. Less intimidated by what I was feeling. It was then I sensed I was being watched. And the coldness of the rock spread through my body. Who had seen me? How long had they been standing there?

"Who's there?"

"Does it really matter?" came the disembodied voice, from somewhere off to my right.

"Yes. Please, show yourself." The ill feeling came over me again as I beheld the person in front of me. Draco Malfoy. The incarnation of everything I disliked. He stayed in the shadows. They suited him.

"Granger..."

"What is it Malfoy? Going to gloat over what you just saw? Tell the whole school? I don't care. Tell them!"

"Why on earth would I do something like that Granger?" He replied, a smirk appearing on his lips. "I'd rather use it as leverage. For when I want something."

"That's blackmail!"

"Well done Granger," he said sardonically. "That's ten points to Gryffindor."

"Well, let's get it over and done with then."

"Granger, believe me, if that's what I wanted, you wouldn't be fully clothed still."

I blushed. I stammered. What in Merlin's name was wrong with me? "That's not what I meant and you know it Malfoy," I spat his name like acid off my tongue. "What do you want from me?"

He leaned in close to me, arms on either side of my face, pinning me to the wall.

"Granger, I want you to tell me that you love me. Like you just did to Potter."

"I won't ever do that. I love Harry, and I..."

"Yes, yes. We all know. 'You love him and you want to be with him forever'. Well let me tell you something...sweetheart. You have more in common with me than you believe, or you'll let yourself believe. But one day you will tell me you love me. And you'll mean it. And I won't pretend to break your heart like Potter did. I'll break it properly..."

I felt anger push blood into my face. Intoxicating me. "I'm nothing like you Malfoy. Nothing. I will never say that I love you. I don't. I never will. Therefore...sweetheart, you will never break my heart. You'll never have it!" I turned and walked away. I could hear him laughing behind me, but I didn't care. I cared for nothing. Not now that my heart was broken...

Hours drifted into days, days rolled into weeks, and still I spoke nothing of that night to Harry. It wasn't worth it. Sometimes, when I think back, I wonder how different things would have been had he accepted me, but there's no point really. Things happened the way they did for a reason. There's always a reason.

During the next month, I found out just how easily broken hearts healed, I thought less and less of Harry, and more and more of the intriguing, dangerous, malicious Malfoy. He presented himself to me at every turn. Wherever I was, he was there. Wherever I looked, he was there. Always slipping me sly smiles and winks, just to remind me of his power over me. And, as strange as it seems, I enjoyed it. I was distancing myself from the rest of the world. Slowly tearing myself away from the people who needed me. Allowing darkness to tinge me with its tendrils. Closing my heart to everything. To everyone. But not to Draco. Somehow, even when the rest of me felt encased in smoked glass, he still made me feel, and I didn't care that it was dislike, even hatred that pulsed through my veins, I felt, and proved to myself I was still human. It was that fact that drew me to him. As I grew numb, he was the part that felt normal. My dislike of him was the stability of my life during that time. I guess I was crazy, well I thought I was when I wrote Draco the note that I did.

Meet me. Tonight. Astronomy Tower. H.

Five words that changed me forever. I didn't expect him to come. I don't know what he thought when he saw me. Perhaps it was the wrong time for me to run, especially into the arms of the enemy. Draco was as dark as I was light at that time. He terrified me. Except when we made love. The darkness disappeared then. We were equals. I was a long time before I admitted that I loved him to myself. We hid our relationship from the world, and even from each other unless we were alone. We hid it because we knew it was wrong, deceitful, even treasonous. We were traitors, we slept with the enemy and got up alone. But we were right. It turned out alright in the end.