Not In Kansas Anymore

Chapter Seventeen: Lucky to be Found

"...And its not that I don't love you too," sobbed Hermione, letting Draco wipe a tear from her eye, still holding her in the face of some cruel irony. "But I've tried that one and a half times and I'm not ready to do it again."

Their bedroom felt very tense, and yet Hermione knew of no place, save a library, that she felt more free. There was an inexplicable trust running between Draco and Hermione, and it remained there even as she turned down his marriage proposal, but it was fractured. Still channeling his love Draco found his hatred for Harry layered on top of her fear of commitment. She didn't want to be broken again. "Can I kill Potter?"

*

Hermione was coming back from the bathroom when she heard them arguing in the foyer. Morons, the foyer echoed.

"I just want to wrap my hands around his neck and snap it..."

"In two. I know Malfoy! You're repeating yourself!" reminded Parvati viciously.

Hermione breathed a nifty little spell to increase her hearing. In moments it felt like Draco and Parvati were arguing in her ear. Draco was clearly seething; they'd had enough arguments about nursery colors for her to know that the rushes of air were heavy exhales from his nose out. "Hermione doesn't have to know that it was me who did the interesting things with the wall and his head."

By whatever god was managing to allow Parvati to keep her head on she rationalized loudly to Draco in earnest. "Look, she doesn't need a bloodbath now, probably make her throw up come to think of it, but you can't do anything to Harry or she won't trust you when the time comes."

"Huh?"

Parvati gave a tired groan. "We'd all be a lot better off if you'd just forget that Harry didn't shake your hand that first day. Alright?"

*

"No, they'd send you to Azkaban and then who'd make me eat an extra bite at lunch?" cried Hermione, a brief smile appearing under the clouds. The sun was starting to peak through the navy sky and filter into the room, a sure sign of a lovely weekend she was going to spend alone with a box of chocolates, tissues, and some of that coffee George had sent her from America.

"Are you okay then?" questioned Draco uncertainly, drawing back until he was completely off the bed and pulling on a shirt to top his pajama bottoms. She watched him for the briefest moment before turning her head away. He just wasn't hers anymore. Not right now.

Hermione nodded. "Go talk to Blaise. We need our friends." She watched him walk out the door, head bowed down slightly. "I'm sorry."

*

"I am sorry our relationship had to end this was," said the bloated head of Harry Potter, speaking from the cover of the latest tabloid to land on Hermione's bed.

Then there was a minor explosion as the door detonated in a rain of confetti and something that smelled suspiciously like burning rock. Seeing Fred and George invade her room at Malfoy Manor made Hermione realize that it probably was burning rock. Draco would blow a kidney.

"Get up!" called George merrily.

Hermione arched an eyebrow and motioned downward to the ton resting on her once caved stomach. This did nothing to dissuade the twins as they danced around the room, stringing their spells behind them. "I'm wallowing," she informed them, waving her arm out to show them her collection of bon bon wrappers, unhealthy gossip magazines, chocolate soy milk, and an old battered copy of Hogwarts; A History.

"This is comfort?" questioned Fred cynically, holding the book up in cynicism. "You've just won an astounding custody battle, you've divorced a bucket of moldy pond scum, and now you want to wallow?"

Hermione didn't have to say anything. Something drew her face down and the boys to her side, George on the right and Fred on the left, holding her hands, inhaling the scent of her coconut conditioner, rubbing her belly and her shoulders alternately, and taking turns breathing. "It wasn't a mistake," she whispered to herself, unaware that as Fred and George were quietly watching her discouraged tears they'd become one body.

"No it wasn't," assured Fred.

*

"I think I just made the worst mistake of my life," dead paned Hermione, accepting the cup of coffee Fred passed into her hands. Sad eyes looked up from her hard-backed chair in front of the twin's fireplace above their shop. Identical eyes, rimmed in sleep, looked back at her, not quite awake or coherent, but supportive and listening.

"Could you trust him dove?" pushed George as he tangoed with his battered green bathrobe. The bathrobe seemed to be winning as the belt attempted to strangle him.

Choking Hermione spat some coffee back into her mug with dancing ducks on the side. "I don't know," her eyes threatened to wash full again even as George conceded defeat and sat down across from her in his polka dotted boxers she'd given him last year for his birthday. Fred had stripped ones that matched.

Fred padded her down with blankets and rubbed her shoulders full of circulation. "Would he save you in face of the flames of hell?" This question was said humorously, but it carried the weight of a legitimate interrogation query.

"Yes." The answer to such a question was just as terribly serious.

"Did he ever stop you from making a mistake that wasn't life ending?" questioned George.

"No," admitted Hermione as she thought of all the times Draco had openly questioned her judgment, but never acted upon his disapproval. He'd answered all her trials even before she called him by his first name; he'd tolerated the fact that she was going to try her fate even though she wasn't supposed to, wasn't meant to be with Ron. Draco had tolerated the mountains of books and never asked questions when she's tried to bury herself in the words. More than once he'd made her eat, made her drink, made her see the reasons to keep on going. There he'd been, before her eyes all these years, never asking questions, letting her marry Harry, vowing to help her raise two children who he wasn't remotely related to, and she'd answered to her fear and walked away.

"Did you love him?" the twins asked in unison, slightly fearful of the fire growing in Hermione's eyes.

"No, I still do," she realized with a start sudden enough to send her coffee plummeting to the ground with a shattering dive. "And he helped me burn all my When Harry Met Hermione teddy bears." Shock white Hermione frantically looked up at Fred and George. "Don't say it."

*

"La la la la la la la! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" sang Ginny at the top of her little lungs. "You're not comparing the sexual prowess of my brother to anyone else."

"Yes we are," chirped Lavender, filing her nails happily.

Grimly Hermione leaned back in her bed, squashing her pillows violently. "No we're not. We're comparing your brother's fumbling prowess to Seamus's Irish tongue, Dean's artistic hands, and the bloke from Lav's trash romance's gift of youth."

Lavender looked up, mildly indignant; "Those trash romances are the only place you're going to be getting any from the way you tell it."

*

Hermione walked out of her fireplace on Monday morning to see an empty wardrobe hanging open like a gaping lonely cave, a missing mirror, and an abandoned soul canister twinkling forlornly on the neatly made bed.

Sighing she stabbed bobby pins into a loose bun, covered her shaking frame in winter robes, and stuffed her glow-in-the-dark socks into her scuffed clogs.

Her students gave her funny looks as she half-heartedly greeted them on her way to soggy grits swirled with meager amounts of brown sugar. She was more interested in the news article unfurling on her spot of cracked wooden staff table. Has She Finally Run Out of Grooms? Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy: the Relationship is Off? With quick eyes Hermione scanned the pillar words of the story, it was all speculation carefully written around libel since she couldn't be reached for comment and he wouldn't comment.

He wouldn't comment.

*

After the End of Viktor/Hermione--the great hope for a Bulgarian-English Peace Treaty:

"...Mr. Krum would not say much on the break-up that was distinguishable to English ears and Miss Granger only reports that it was mutual..."

After the War:

"The Headmaster of Hogwarts School has closed his mouth to comment, but he leaves with this reporter a hope for reconstruction alive in his blue eyes.

At the Release of Spy Information:

"Exclusive books were kept by the Order of the Phoenix in an eternity code with an encryption breakable to so very few we could reach none for comment. We can say however that it has been said by Reamus Lupin that Severus Snape, an honored spy, would have kept his mouth locked in face of fame or glory."

When She Cracked Ron's Heart:

"Mr. Ronald Weasley has recently released that he and long time fiancée Hermione Granger will not be trying to wed again, that is all he said."

No comment had been given by any, and didn't she trust them all?

*

"He wants me to make sure you eat," droned Blaise amiably enough, sitting next to Hermione as she tried to keep the tears from inking up her paper. "He still cares deeply," whispered Blaise, stroking some of her hair behind her ear.

Shoveling a mouthful of grits in Hermione effectively kept herself from crying out and causing a scene. Swallowing Hermione looked to Blaise. "I ate."

"Do it again, it keeps you from imitating a rusty faucet," commanded Blaise, wrinkling up the paper in front of Hermione and summoning all the rest from the grasp of students around the hall. He then began folding a bouquet of paper flowers for Hermione.

She took bite after bite until her stomach ached and the bell rang to relieve her. Blaise passed her the flowers and scolded quietly, "He could have made them real."

*

Hermione stepped out of the fire grate and looked around the flat. Seeing nothing she disappointedly removed her pumps to massage sore feet. Sighing Hermione fell into a chair by the window to observe the street below. Her husband had forgotten her; he had forgotten Valentine's Day. How do you do that?

Drifting off to sleep she slept with her fingers inside her robes, thumb rubbing the friendly card she'd received from Draco.

The door creaked open as she dreamt of rose petal pathways and more chocolate than she could manage. Harry tiptoed in and watched her limp hand fall out of the chair, clutching a pink envelope. Removing it he read the message and cringed--he'd forgotten Valentine's Day.

Just as his young wife was stirring he summoned a vase full of roses.

Hermione's smile exploded at the sight of Harry standing over her with the flowers. Burying her face in them she felt the scratching they made on her face with their cotton petals.

*

"I need you back," she said softly, her eyes so soft they looked as though they were silken bronze. "Draco, I made a mistake, I don't like mistakes, but I make them often enough, and letting you go was the worst one I could have ever made. I love you. I can barely function without you there next to me. Don't you see that? How I tumble over words and walk the halls in insomnia because the bed just isn't warm enough? I love you, come back."

An uncertain knock came from the other side of the door and Hermione gave a start, dropping her hand mirror. "You love you?" asked Draco, his head tilting to the side curiously, fallen long out of its hold.

"No," mumbled Hermione, chin resting on her chest forlornly, and a red blush creeping up her face.

Sitting down on the bed next to Hermione Draco kissed her head, pulling her toward him. "I got your message." From in the midst of his robes he pulled out a tiny silver ball glowing golden, pulsing with life.

A soul canister and it was full.

*

Hermione sneezed and the dust clotting the shelves exploded off book pages and box lids and attacked the air viciously. Blinking the tears from her eyes she began gently scooping the dust away and picking through the trinkets lining the ceiling high shelves. Craning her neck she was oddly comforted by the claustrophobia settling in as she ran her fingers lightly along the rough book spines just below her waist level.

"Can I help you miss?" wheezed an old cripple coming round the end of the isle.

Smiling broadly Hermione gushed, "I used to work in a bookshop, but it was nothing like this."

"You haven't been here in quite sometime," pointed out the elder.

"No, I haven't," mourned Hermione, shaking her bushy head, but her eyes kept buzzing around the displays. Drawing herself back to reality she pulled a small slip of parchment from her pocket. "I need these things, do you have them?"

And the man was off. Nose pasted to the list he navigated the rows of towering shelves with an ancient and learned ease. "The Bible of Thor," he murmured, using one wrinkled hand to draw a violently heavy holy book off a shelf. "Hope you know how to use that," he said benignly, unworried.

Her arms filled with the greatest of history's novels and scrolls, crystalline orbs, vampire stakes, worn pendants, and then finally, "Ah, the real reason you've come home, I've got the last one...here, somewhere."

*

"I don't need this to know you love me." Draco clenched his fist around the orb and the shards turned to the finest golden sand, flowing through his fingers lightly, the tiny soul inside flowing out and back into Hermione's frame. "But it doesn't make any sense, this is insane."

Hermione lifted her head with a great effort and whispered, "Love isn't sane or there would never be an ever after."

"No I suppose not," replied Draco gently, twisting a lock of hair around his finger, progressively pulling Hermione on to his lap.

Hermione fell into him but pulled back at the last second, "I'm not ready to marry you."

A benevolent smile flew over Draco's face; "We're lucky. Some soul mates never even find each other."

On the floor the hand mirror lay in tact, unbroken, face reflecting the cascade of emotions that would fly through the life of its owner as six years ago...