The Things We Never Say

THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY

Divided We Fall

Chapter Nine

Hermione returns to Hogwarts when the Christmas holidays rush to an end. She is hesitant to see Draco; she is hesitant to find out what he thought of her gift. Did he understand its meaning? Would anything change?

She tries to concentrate on her lessons, on Harry's obvious unease, on the palpable tension drifting through the halls, on anything but Draco. She is successful until her first Potions lesson because down in the dungeons, sitting in the damp classroom, she can't escape Draco--he sits two tables to her left.

She can't escape him, but she can ignore him. So she does. She pretends he doesn't exist. She pretends not to notice him sneaking glances in her direction. She pretends her hands aren't shaking, her heart isn't screaming in protest.

By the end of the lesson, the classroom feels like a torture chamber used as a means to suffocate the life out of her body. It almost succeeds. When she steps out into the hallway, she pulls the wet air into her lungs slowly and releases a shaky excuse for a breath. Without meaning to, she casts a glance over her shoulder. Draco is there, confusion and something akin to pain etched on his perfect face. She turns away. If things are going to change between them, he must make the next step--she knows this, even as she knows she desperately wants to run to him, but she doesn't. Instead she hurries away from him, wishing she didn't feel his stare at her back.

* * * *

Days and days pass--too many for Hermione to count--and still Draco has not come to her. She fears he has made his choice, and it doesn't include her. A heavy weight shifts from her shoulders and rests on her heart.

She is thinking of him, wishing his absence didn't feel so deep in her stomach, when she enters the common room. It's late, and it's deserted except for two lone figures sitting near the hearth. Hermione recognizes their silhouettes instantly. By the hunch of Harry's shoulders and the rigidity of Ron's, she knows something is wrong. Desperately wrong.

She hurries over and falls to her knees beside them.

"What's going on?" she asks.

Ron looks up at with her a pained expression on his face; she can see the fear in his eyes. Her stomach falls from its resting place and disappears through the cold floor. Harry says nothing; this doesn't soothe her growing anxiety or ease the knot in her throat.

She reaches out and grips Harry's arm.

"What's happened?" she asks again.

Harry looks up at her; in his eyes she can see a lifetime of sorrows, too many for his age, too heavy for his burden alone.

"The War. It's begun...this time for certain..." his voice trails off as does his gaze. He stares into the fire.

Guilt roars up through Hermione like a rampaging bull. She has been worried, even saddened, over her loss of Draco, and Harry has been carrying the world in his arms. She has forgotten the order of things, the importance of her part to play.

"How do you know?" she asks, looking from Harry to Ron. Harry continues to stare into the flickering flames.

Ron speaks. "We've just left Dumbledore's office. He didn't tell us every specific detail but he fears an attack on Hogwarts."

"But that's impossible," Hermione blurts out immediately. "Hogwarts can't be attacked. It's a fortress of wards and spells. No one...no one could breach these walls."

Ron shakes his head sadly and sighs. "That's what everyone thinks--"

"--but they're wrong," Harry interrupts. He looks up at Hermione. There is a mixture of anger and sadness in his eyes. "They're wrong, Hermione. We aren't safe anymore. No one is. Death Eaters staged an attack tonight on a harmless group of wizards holding a meeting..." Harry pauses and swallows in the silence. The fire pops and he closes his eyes. "It was a meeting about plants or trees or something meaningless like that. Everyone was killed...and someone wrote...someone wrote..." He chokes on the words and drops his head down.

Ron looks up at Hermione, who is biting her bottom lip in an anguished suspense. "Someone wrote the words 'This is for Harry Potter'," Ron whispers and Hermione gasps. "It was written in blood." Ron casts an uncomfortable gaze at Harry before looking back at Hermione.

"Harry," Hermione says immediately, "don't you think for one second this is your fault. Those bastards are trying to lure you into doing something stupid," she says pleadingly.

Harry jerks his head up and stares at her. His expression is harsh and then despairing. "Don't you understand that this has to end with me?" he whispers. Ron shifts uneasily to his knees. "The school has been shaking with some underlying disquiet for weeks. I know you've felt it," he says, looking up at her and she can only nod. "I didn't want this War to start, but it has. I don't want people to die, but they will. I don't want Hogwarts to be divided, but we'll split down the middle...between friends and houses and families..." he sighs and some of the weight of his burden shifts onto Hermione's heart, "...I don't want to fight against faces I've seen sitting across from me in the Great Hall, but I'll have to. We'll all have to."

Hermione reaches out an unsteady hand and touches Harry's arm, then reaches for Ron's. "What can I do?"

"Stand on my side," Harry says, and Hermione smiles sadly.

"That's easy," she whispers.

Hermione lay on her bed that night, unable to sleep, unable to stop her mind from racing. Harry's words are hanging in the air, practically tangible.

Hermione had always known the War would be inevitable. She just doesn't want it to be. She knows Harry is right--Hogwarts will be divided. She closes her eyes, squeezes them shut, but the tears escape down the sides of her cheeks and her body shudders in sorrow. Will she and Draco be on opposites sides? Will there be a line carefully drawn between them? Hasn't there always been?

* * * *

Nights later, Draco is lying on his bed, arms folded behind his head, staring at the potted plant of Thyme sitting on his bedside table. He's thought of nothing night after night but Hermione. She's on his mind in the morning when he opens his eyes, in the late afternoon when he should be focusing on other things, in the early evening when the sun sets behind the mountains, turning the sky to fire, and in the late evening when he should be studying or sleeping. She is always there as is her precious Thyme. He is licking his lips, thinking of her kiss when the door to his dormitory bursts open and Goyle walks in.

"A letter for you," he replies, walking toward Draco's bed.

Draco sits up and reaches out for it, not failing to miss the strange twinkle in Goyle's dim eyes. Draco tears the envelope open, and looks up at Goyle before reading.

"Where did this come from?" Draco asks.

"An owl dropped off a few of them in the common room." There it is again--the twinkle in Goyle's eyes; Draco suddenly feels ill at ease.

He looks down at the letter and begins to read.

The War has begun. Hogwarts will fall. During evacuation, escape the group and flee to the west side of the castle where you will find a portkey beneath the sixth arch to the right of the yew tree.

Draco reads the letter three more times before glancing up at Goyle. Now he understands the unusual light in Goyle's eyes. He wishes he could feel the glee he's spent his whole life waiting for, preparing for, but he can't. An ache is forming in his chest, and he instantly thinks of Hermione. He yells unexpectedly when the letter bursts into flames. He drops the parchment from his hands and it lands on the potted plant, creating a burst of orange and green flashing flames as it burns Hermione's Thyme to ash.

Draco has barely a second to register what this new development will mean when Pansy rushes into the boy's dormitory. She is smiling widely, and Draco can see the wicked gleam shining in her eyes.

"Hogwarts is under attack! We have to leave immediately!" she yells and though her voice sounds terrified, Draco can see the triumph and dirty excitement on her face.

"What?" Draco asks, standing quickly to his feet.

"Did you get the letter?" she whispers, crossing the room to him. He nods. "Then, you know," she whispers, then raises her voice as a loud commotion flows down the stairs from the Slytherin common room. "We have to get out. The teachers will lead us to safety. We'll follow them." Then she winks and grabs his hand as she pulls him from the dormitory.

The Slytherin common room is a cluster of chaos and loud voices. Professor Snape is shouting and trying to maintain some degree of order. Students are hurrying out through the portrait hole and into the hallway beyond. Draco pries his hand from Pansy's and joins the crowd, trying to blend in and disappear from his comrades. He is relieved, though oddly unnerved, to find the hallway devoid of torchlight, and he is immediately thrust into the darkness.

As he rushes through the hallway, the tip of his wand lit eerily, the one thought in his head isn't to find the sixth arch to the right of the yew tree, but to find Hermione before they are separated...permanently.

* * * *

Hermione yells at a first year that is frozen with fear, unable to move. She rushes to the young girl's side and shoves her into the arms of an older student.

"Take her with you!" Hermione demands.

"Okay, that's everyone," Ron yells over the noise and dread as he and Hermione stand on the dark staircase. "The Gryffindor Tower is empty. Where's Harry?"

"He's just ahead of us...with Professor McGonagall," Hermione says, grabbing Ron's arm. "Come on."

The tip of her wand is lit up, illuminating the steps before them as they practically fly down the moving staircases. Her mind is a racing tangle of thoughts and emotions.

She is completely frightened, but she is authoritative and holds the strength for the ones lacking. She is worried, but shows nothing but hope in her eyes. As she and Ron wait for the moving staircase to swing back in their direction, she lowers her wand and allows her eyes to fill with sadness in the unknowing darkness.

She never thought she'd have to flee her beloved Hogwarts, and she never thought she'd be concerned with the whereabouts of a certain Slytherin, but she is. When the staircase swings back, Hermione and Ron run to catch up with the others. The group moves as quickly as possible, and Hermione thinks she can hear tears mixed in with the anxious voices of her peers and friends.

She is comforting a younger student as they hurry toward an exit. She can see Harry's eyes lit up by a nearby wand as he looks over his shoulder and sees her. She smiles as best as she can, and he nods his understanding. In the moving mass of people and voices, Hermione hears a single voice call out to her. She stops and turns her head and stares down a darkened corridor, wondering if she imagined the sound.

"Hermione," he calls out to her again.

"What are you doing?" Ron yells at her. She looks at her best friend and walks toward him, but stops as the staircase in front of her begins to move away from her. Ron looks perplexed, obviously not wanting to be separated from Hermione.

"I'll come down a different way. Look for me!" she yells, turning back for the corridor. She steps warily in the direction of the voice and holds her wand out, staring into the inky blackness.

The hiss and spark of a wand illuminates his face, and she isn't sure if she wants to scream or cry as she stares at Draco.

They say nothing for a few moments. Then, she steps forward another two steps.

"I had to find you," he finally says and Hermione discovers she can't speak. Her bottom lip threatens to tremble, and she blinks rapidly in an attempt to ward away the impending tears.

He closes the distance between them, and she wants to step away from him, but she can't.

"I...I needed to find you," he says, and his voice is almost too gentle to be his.

She looks up into his grey eyes. "Why?" she whispers. Her head is screaming with a million different thoughts, but one thought keeps pushing its way to the front--relief in finding him, in being close to him again.

Draco touches her arm, and she feels the heat radiating off his body; it nearly burns her alive. He doesn't answer her, but in the light of their wands, she can see the answer on his face. As he leans toward her, she watches him as if in slow motion and realizes he doesn't have to say anything because she knows why he had to find her

When Draco's lips touch hers, he kisses her and she can feel his hesitation, his worry. She somehow manages to pocket her wand in her robes, and then her hands are on his chest. One hand slides up to his neck and pulls his head closer as she deepens the kiss.

Draco encircles her waist with his arm as his other hand moves up her side slowly, but the gentle kisses and touches don't last. Soon their kisses become a frantic need to connect and feel the heat of each other before it is all taken away.

In an uncharacteristic display of need and reckless abandon, Hermione pushes Draco into the wall and kisses him feverishly, moving her hands on his body. A moan originates in the back of his throat and starts a tremble in her chest that travels down to her toes and back up again. She finds she can't get close enough to Draco, she can't get enough of anything. The warring emotions burst and rip apart inside her, fighting for the light, fighting for dominance.

She arches into Draco's hands, drops her head to the side as he kisses her neck, and unable to stop them, tears roll down her cheeks. When Draco kisses across her face, he pauses, slows the movements of his hands and pulls her into a genuine embrace.

"Don't cry, Hermione," he whispers, and she knows he can feel the trembling in her body. He pulls away and tries to see her face in the shadowed light from his wand which is tucked into the pocket of his pants.

"I have to go," she says, looking away from his gaze, and knowing someone is bound to come looking for her if she doesn't join the others soon.

"I know," he replies. "The War has already begun."

"Yes."

"And we..." he hesitates, brushing his thumb across her wet cheek.

"...are on different sides," she finishes and she doesn't care that he can probably hear the sadness in her voice.

She steps away from him, and she can feel him reach out to her. "It's always been that way, Hermione. We've never been on the same side."

His voice doesn't sound cold, but it slices through her like a tarnished blade. She chokes back a sob and clutches her arms around her stomach.

"You're right...and divided we will fall," she whispers as her voice quivers.

Draco grabs her arms in his hands and tugs her body toward his. He kisses her again, and she's too troubled to stop him. It's a passionate and desperate kiss, and it feels like the last one she'll ever receive from him. She throws her arms around his neck in an attempt to hold onto him one last time. When they pull apart in the silence, the sounds of their ragged breathing echoing in the hush of the darkness, she looks into his eyes and she can see it all.

There are so many things she wants to say to him in that moment, but it isn't the time, and she and Draco are so good at saying nothing. Besides, she can see everything he wants to say to her swimming in his grey eyes--all his fears, all his desires, all his love.

"...Hermione...I..." he stumbles, frowning deeply and searching for the right thing to say.

She clasps his face in her hands and smiles as tears pool in her eyes before sliding out of the corners. "I know," she whispers. She stands on her tiptoes, kisses his lips gently and steps away from him.

She takes one last look at him, pulls her wand from her robes and lights the tip of it as she hurries away, leaving Draco standing alone in the darkness.

There is a War going on, and she must return to her side, because everyone knows there is no middle ground.

* * * *

Draco finds his way outside the walls of the castle. He can hear the hundreds of voices escaping to a safer place for the time being. He slips around the west side of the school, and there lit up by a crescent moon is the yew tree. He counts six arches to the right, and stops and stares at the silver snake hiding in the grass. He crouches down next to it, looks over his shoulder and closes his eyes.

There is a War going on, and he never thought he'd regret the side he'd chosen all those years ago, but sitting in the dim moonlight, thinking of one too many forbidden kisses, he longs to have selected the other side of the divide. He wonders if perhaps it isn't too late to shift his loyalties, but first things first. He reaches out for the silver snake, and as it tugs him from the navel, the last vision in his mind is one of Hermione looking at him with tears and love in her eyes.

THE END