By the Way Chapter Eight

By the Way

By: Provocative Envy

OOO

CHAPTER EIGHT

I didn’t let myself think about him as I walked back to my room that night. I didn’t allow myself to wonder, ponder, wish: invariably, I would wish he’d said more, done more; invariably, I would wish that everything, not just him, not just myself, would go back to normal, whatever that was, whatever that had been.

I just wanted everything, not just him, not just myself, to stay the same.

I just wanted everything, not just him, not just myself, to not be so horrendously complicated.

Complicated. The word was enigmatic, mysterious, fraught with a million definitions, a million different meanings; pending on perspective and tone, timing and circumstance, it could be an insult, a compliment: it could be absolutely anything, or absolutely nothing, and I would never know.

I tried to remember, then, his expression, his stance, the precise curve of his lips, the exact intensity of his eyes.

His expression? Inscrutable.

His stance? Relaxed.

His lips had curved upwards, seemingly out of their own volition; his eyes had burned into mine, searching, searching, searching.

For what, I couldn’t begin to imagine.

Somehow, I didn’t think he could either.

Imagine, that is.

OOO

I woke up the next morning with a resolution: I was going to be logical.

I was done dissecting my emotions like there was anything worthwhile to be found in them; I was finished looking for ulterior motives, for hidden meaning in the mundane. I was going to be decisive, detached, coldly calculating: I was going to be everything I hadn’t been since I’d found myself under the mistletoe with Ron on Christmas morning.

A good night’s sleep had lent the previous evening’s confusion some clarity. Clearly, Malfoy had used the word ‘complicated’ in a misguided effort to redirect my trauma elsewhere; for whatever reason, the phrase ‘stereotypical reject’ was a catalyst for some long-forgotten inferiority complex. Obviously, my astonishingly strong reaction had taken him by surprise, maybe even alarm, and he’d recognized that the only way to haul me back to sanity was through what would, in comparison, be perceived as a compliment.

Far from a nicety, he’d done nothing except extract himself from an uncomfortable situation. Which was such a classic Malfoy maneuver—it was so believably, predictably characteristic that I actually found comfort in it.

Besides, I wasn’t complicated. Not in the least. I was prissy, irritable, and brilliant: what was complicated about that? I’d gone through a messy breakup, nothing more. It was only natural that I harbor some unpleasant feelings for an extended period of time. I was still a girl, for heaven’s sake. I had some sensitivity left.

Malfoy was just doing what Malfoy did best—preying on my weaknesses. He’d killed two birds with one stone, and he most definitely recognized that. He’d relieved himself of a hysterical female and laced his parting words with so much ambiguity that he knew I’d waste hours wondering exactly what he’d meant. He knew me too well to not think otherwise: I hated not knowing, hated being ignorant of what sounded like such a basic fact, such a pertinent piece of information.

That’s all it had been.

Complicated, I scoffed inwardly, smirking as I sat down to eat my breakfast. I glanced upwards just in time to see a plain barn owl swooping towards me. Smiling at the creature, I untied the letter from its outstretched leg and fed it some bacon.

My face froze as I looked at the handwriting.

My world, just that morning set to rights, was sent tumbling off its axis as I read the missive.

Ten minutes later, a piece of parchment would be found on the table, indecipherable, drenched in the aftermath of a spilled cup of orange juice.

No one would know it had been mine.

OOO

Hermione,

You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, do you?

No, I can tell just by the way you’re scowling at me right now that you don’t. You have no idea I think about you, still, even after all these months. You have no idea that every time I kiss her, speak to her, look at her, I pretend it’s you I’m kissing, you I’m talking to, laughing with, gazing at.

Just like you have no idea that I’m writing to you right now, even as you glare daggers at me, thinking, for God knows what reason, that I can’t see you.

But I can. See you, that is. I always see you.

Why am I doing this, you might ask?

Simple.

You have to know.

I already played the hero in letting you go. I already did my part in making sure you hated me, making sure I’d broken your heart enough so that it couldn’t be mine again.

So let me tell you everything you don’t know, everything I kept back when I watched you fall apart, when I watched you come out of the girls’ room with red eyes, when I watched you collapse the first time you saw me kiss her—you couldn’t have known, couldn’t have guessed, that I was wishing with all I had that it was you I had in my arms, you whose mouth was pressed against mine.

So why did I pick her over you? Why did I act like you didn’t matter, act like I didn’t want you, act like I didn’t realize how much it was killing you to see me turn against you?

Because I’m not good enough for you. I never have been.

And it took something Malfoy said to make me realize it. To make me realize that all I was doing was holding you back. You’re talented, and beautiful, and a bloody genius; what could I do for you? Nothing but love you—and even there, I failed.

OOO

He hadn’t signed it.

That was the only thing I could focus on as I hugged my knees to my chest and perched on the window seat in the Astronomy Tower.

He hadn’t signed it, and that made it all a million times worse. Had he known, in that eerie sixth-sense way he’d always known, that I’d destroy it? Had he guessed that I wouldn’t want evidence of his confession any more than he would?

Or had he just not bothered to put his name to it because I knew his handwriting almost better than I knew my own?

“Stop it, Hermione,” I berated myself in a heated whisper, uncertain why I was dwelling on something as insignificant as a byline.

But it took half a second’s deliberation to realize why I was being stupid: I didn’t want to think about all the things he had written, all the things he had put to paper. If I did, something in me would break, something I couldn’t fix with common sense, something that couldn’t heal with time.

Something that had come dangerously close to shattering once before.

Something I couldn’t put a name to, didn’t want to put a name to, because if I could, if I did, that would mean I knew what it was, knew what it was that throbbed unpleasantly every time I thought about him, every time I thought about him with her.

“Good God, you’re not going to jump are you?” Malfoy, bless him, interrupted my thoughts.

“No.” I couldn’t formulate a sentence, could barely get out that syllable.

“Right. Wouldn’t want to give me the satisfaction,” he sighed dramatically, leaning on his elbows on the window sill next to me.

There were a few minutes of companionable silence, which should have struck me as odd, but didn’t: I had too much else to think about, too much else to worry over.

“So what did you say to him to make him dump me?” I blurted out, wincing at the flat, unnatural pitch of my voice.

His arms slipped off the ledge as he turned to stare at me, dumbfounded.

“What the devil are you going on about now, Granger?” he demanded, his mouth hanging open even as those superbly gray eyes narrowed.

“It’s a fairly straightforward question,” I shrugged, belittling the importance of in inquiry: oh, but he couldn’t know how curious I was, how furious I was.

“If you’re referring to the spineless twit you called your boyfriend--” he sneered, “—then I’ll have you know I said absolutely nothing. I just pointed out some glaringly obvious facts that he seemed most pitifully unaware of.”

He sniffed, even as I seethed. He had the nerve to admit he’d played a rather substantial role in my heartbreak?

“And these facts were what, exactly?” I ground out.

He didn’t answer me, just maintained his brooding silence as he regarded my stiff posture, my clenched jaw, my flushed face.

“Malfoy,” I said harshly, taking a step towards him.

“Say my name,” he burst out, color flaming his cheeks even as he defiantly met my bewildered gaze.

“What?” I asked, slack jawed, disoriented.

“Say my name. You’ve never said it,” he repeated, his eyes piercing mine: swirling, dizzy, breathe breathe breathe, color, motion, dizzy, falling, tumbling, graceless, oh so graceless, breathe, dizzy dizzy dizzy, breathe, please breathe, tripping, falling, over and over, but it’s beautiful, swirling, breathe breathe, oh, God, inhale, exhale, land softly, please, breathe breathe breathe, Hermione.

“Draco. Please.”

My soft plea was his undoing, though.

He shuddered, bit his lip, turned away from me and raked a hand through his hair.

“I told him you were a little too complicated for his purposes, that’s all,” he responded cruelly.

He stalked towards the staircase before I could catch his sleeve.

“Why did you want me to say your name, anyways?” I called out, angry once more.

He stopped in the doorway.

“Because I couldn’t stand to hear his anymore. Not from you.”

He didn’t turn around, but waited a few seconds, as if hoping I’d reply. As if hoping I could think of a witty rejoinder, something clever and wry and devastating that would mark this encounter as just another run-in between two long-standing enemies.

But I didn’t reply, and he never turned around, and when I next blinked, he’d left.

OOO