By the Way Chapter Seventeen

By the Way

By: Provocative Envy

OOO

Author’s Note:It’s been an extremely long time, I know. But life caught up with me, and I got busy—I spent a good portion of the past three months sending a portion of what I’m hoping will be my first, published novel to various publishers, hoping for a response, something. I’m happy to say that I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback, and that by the time I graduate, I might just have a contract. But we’ll see.

Anyways.

This is the last chapter of this story. This is the end. When I sat down to write the rest of it, after my little three month hiatus, I reread the entire thing leading up to this, and realized that, for me, it was over. There were just a few loose ends, or emotions, to tie up. This story went in a way different direction than I’d initially anticipated (or hoped), and I’m not entirely sure what it means to me yet. There’s a lot of significance in the more subtle aspects of it, but that could just be a personal reaction. I don’t know.

So this is it.

The end.

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed and enjoyed it.

It was fun.

OOO

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ever since I first heard the word in relation to reality, my reality that is, I’ve thought about what it meant—love. It’s not the word so much as the meaning that elicits a multitude of emotions that vary between confusion and comfort, between fascination and feigned indifference, between happiness and caution and a thousand other things you can’t really understand, not at first, since that isn’t the point, is it? I don’t think I’m supposed to understand it. I don’t think that inherent certainty is something that should be understood. I don’t know exactly when it happened, and I don’t know exactly how it did; I don’t remember the realization, and I don’t remember the falling. I just remember knowing, suddenly, all at once, that this wasn’t something ordinary.

I lifted my pen from the thick, white paper and reread the lines of script I’d sullied it with. I bit my lip before continuing.

I know that you’re not perfect, since perfection’s unattainable, virtually impossible—but I know, too, that to me, you are. Which is essentially the most perplexing, engaging, astonishing, wonderful aspect of this thing I’m calling love: Its dichotomy, its contradiction by definition. How it makes so much sense in my mind, but as soon as I attempt to offer an explanation out loud, it breaches the barriers of logic.

For so long, I’d craved the comfort and stability of facts, logic, knowledge. For so long, I’d believed that falling in love with Ron was destiny, since it made so much sense, endless, blessed sense, and that was all I really wanted, wasn’t it?

The thing was, though, that it wasn’t. It wasn’t what I wanted. Not anymore. What I wanted was presently walking towards me, his languorous stride jarring my senses—breathe, breathe, softly, slowly, deeply, don’t forget, don’t stop, breathe, forget you’re dizzy, forget it, breathe, breathe, Hermione.

“What are you so intent on?” he asked breezily, taking the seat next to me, our thighs brushing against each other, and reaching for the parchment in front of me.

My reflexes were dull, though, and I didn’t think, couldn’t think, to grab it out of his hands, even as I watched his eyebrows rise straight to his hairline as he began to read, even as I watched his lips purse, his jaw clench, his eyes skimming over the words that he was never supposed to see, the words he never should have seen.

And then he set down the paper very deliberately, swallowing.

And then he spoke:

“Hermione,” he began.

“Don’t say it,” I interrupted brusquely.

“But--” he started.

“Don’t,” I said forcefully.

“I can’t love you,” he blurted out, and then he winced as it occurred to him how he sounded, how he looked, saying something like that, and oddly, rashly, ridiculously, I wanted to comfort him, pretend that it was completely fine with me, what he was doing, that he wasn’t hurting me, couldn’t hurt me, not ever, just so he wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt.

Instead, I met his gaze, his desperate, searching gaze, and asked, painfully—

“Why?”

The word hung between us, awkwardly suspended, like a tightrope walker balanced dangerously, precariously, on his toes, the slightest breeze equating death.

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“I don’t understand,” I persisted weakly.

He closed his eyes, opened them, closed them again.

“I just can’t, alright?” he murmured distractedly, running a hand through his hair.

“Can’t or won’t?”

Time seemed to stop, fleetingly, as he considered me, considered my question, considered everything—time, the only scarcity in life, in love, and he was acting like we had so much of it.

And that was when I began to get angry.

“Hermione, we were born into completely different worlds,” he explained tiredly. “We hate each other, we hate each other’s beliefs, we hate…well, isn’t it enough that we hate each other? I can’t love you. You can’t love me. It’s an impossibility. It’s like…I just can’t. I won’t.”

A beat of silence, and then—

“You’re a coward,” I hissed, rage enveloping my mortification, my humiliation, the embarrassment I had every justifiable reason to succumb to. “How dare you belittle what I feel for you, felt for you, by dismissing it as something worthy of a dismissal. How dare you pretend to ignore its legitimacy. You, of all people, should understand, recognize, even, how flimsy an excuse fatalism is. I spent half a lifetime thinking Ron Weasley was the love of my life, my forever, if you will. I know what it feels like to have that belief shattered.”

“Shattered?” he queried, expressionless.

“Yes. Shattered. You facilitated my collapse, you witnessed it, you reveled in it…and you fixed it. You fixed it. You made it better. Somehow. It’s always been you. And you’re sitting there, telling me you can’t love me, that it’s impossible because society will maim us with their disapproval, et cetera. Spare me.”

I was breathing, finally, and I was thinking, finally, and he was listening—finally.

“I’m not a coward,” he intoned, still gazing over my shoulder.

“Oh, really?” I returned, fluent in sarcasm.

“No.”

“Well, I think you’re wrong,” I said scathingly. “I think you were born a coward.”

He flinched.

Silence stretched between us, indelible.

“Why can’t you, then? Why? Because you were born to do otherwise?” I sneered, head spinning, heart breaking, so many thoughts crowding my mind that it hurt to try and organize them.

And that was when he changed, right before me, right in front of me, his shoulders straightening, his hands unmoving, his vulnerability obvious. It had never been more obvious.

“No,” he mumbled, turning to look at me, into me.

“No what?” I demanded shakily, my lips trembling as I remembered, vividly, how he’d traced them with his fingertips, gently, lovingly.

“I wasn’t born to hate you,” he explained, a wry sort of sincerity softening his features. “I was born…” he trailed off, clearing his throat.

“Yes?”

“I was born,” he continued quietly, “to tell you I love you.”

I stared at him, at his face, at his eyes, at his mouth, at his pale, pale skin and his blond, blond hair; I stared, and I smiled.

“Can we start over?” I asked abruptly.

“What?” he countered stupidly, confusion clouding his eyes.

“Start over. From the beginning. Like we’ve never met.”

He studied me, gauging me, and I felt like my past, my present, my entire future, even, was resting on his response.

“Hi, I’m Draco,” he finally said, quirking his lips and holding out his hand.

This was it, I realized. This was everything I’d been living up to, waiting for, wanting; this was what I’d had dreams and nightmares about, what I’d wasted so much time agonizing over. This was it, and it was almost done. Over. Finished.

Or maybe it was just the start of something perfect.

Maybe it was just the beginning.

Maybe I’d finally found my forever.

“Hi,” I whispered, taking his hand, entwining our fingers. “I’m complicated.”

OOO

THE END