By the Way Chapter Sixteen

By the Way

By: Provocative Envy

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Author’s Note: This took awhile. I’m sorry. But I’m pretty pleased with it, in the grand scheme of things. Not too many chapters left in this, though.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was raining.

It was raining, and I couldn’t sleep, not even a little bit. Every time my eyes would drift shut, every time I could feel my muscles contract, then relax, and then succumb to pure exhaustion; I would jerk awake, my hands gripping the sheets, and then wonder what was different, what was wrong, and then remember—oh, that’s right.

Malfoy.

Malfoy was different.

Malfoy was wrong.

Malfoy was a liar and a bigot and fake, a hypocrite, all the things I’d hated and been better than and thought myself impervious to for forever. He was an egotist, a sycophant, completely undeserving of my attention, my affection, my time.

Except, suddenly, he wasn’t just everything I hated, disdained, despised.

He was, very simply, everything.

My gaze locked on the corner of my bed; my palms began to drip sweat, cold sweat, my fingertips turning white as I clutched harder, more desperately, at my comforter. My mind was trapped, stuck, on that one word—everything everything everything everything—and I just kept repeating it, my lips parted.

But then I heard a clock strike two, and I was brought back to reality, and I was climbing out of bed before I could think, stop, and I was running, sprinting, almost, through the deserted hallways, dreaming a conception of clarity, and then I was slipping outside, raindrops slapping across my face, my neck, my chest, and I was racing for the lake, uncaring of anything but that shadow, that shape, standing on the shore, and then he was turning towards me, except I couldn’t read his expression through all the rain, so much rain, but I skidded to a halt mere inches before I would have barreled into him, his arms, and I watched his throat as he swallowed, watched his eyes as they drifted down my body, watched the way his hair was plastered to his forehead, damp and dark, and I silently implored him to say something, say anything, please please please.

“Meeting the Weasel down here, Granger?” he asked coldly: Come back, come back, just once.

“No. Why? Trying to convince him to dump Lavender now, are you?” I replied, my voice brittle: Nothing could be worse than having absolutely nothing to lose, nothing at all.

“That’s a thought,” he mused, water dripping down his face. “It might be a bit more difficult than getting rid of you was, though.”

I flinched: Something must be wrong, something, when your heart can’t break and your tears can’t fall.

“Why are you being like this?” I whispered, numb: And you’re hollow, you’re empty, and none of it matters.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Granger,” he bit out. “I’m being normal. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“What?” I said, staring, confused: It occurs to you that you’re flying, sort of, just without the wings, and it’s incredible, since even if you fall, the air’s still rushing past, which is everything you wanted, all along, all the time.

“You said you wanted everything to go back to normal. Isn’t that what you wanted?” he repeated, his glare piercing, his tone needling: No, but regret never felt so awful, I swear, I promise, never.

“Since when have you taken it upon yourself to give me what I want?”

He glanced down at me then, the rain running in glistening streams down his cheeks, and his lips pursed, as if his answer was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t get it out, couldn’t bring himself to say it, and then he was taking a step back, away from me: You can pretend it’s an affliction, really, you can, I won’t tell, I’ll never tell.

“Since we both started wanting the same thing,” he finally responded.

I didn’t say anything: An epiphany was my last priority.

“It’s just…I know. I know, Granger, what you’re talking about when you say you want to hate me, and you wish and wish and wish that you still could, and how simple life would go back to being if we…if everything just became normal again. I know.”

His words were coming in spurts, awkwardly tumbling out of his mouth—and I was fascinated: Cruelty can be a comfort, sometimes, all the time, maybe.

“And…and I’ve been trying, trying so hard, to remember why, exactly, I used to spend so much time, so much energy, thinking of all these clever little insults, and I…I just can’t. Remember, I mean. So I figured if I could just go back to hating you, if I could just go through the motions, saying all the things that made you hate me to begin with…I figured I could do us both a favor.”

The rain was still falling in sheets and torrents, and the wind was still blowing, and we were still a foot apart, and that maddening lock of hair was still draped across his forehead, but all I could focus on was his eyes: they were gray and luminous through the violent bursts of water plummeting from the sky, and they were big and bright and oddly, amazingly sincere and they were boring into my own and disrupting all sorts of promises and emotions and they were mesmerizing, that was it, mesmerizing, and I wanted him and his eyes and it didn’t even matter that I couldn’t believe him because I did, I really did, but when I reached out my hand, all he did was look at it, his eyebrows drawn together.

“I’m tired of pretending,” I said honestly: Perfect posture and fabricated friendships are what you live for.

The rain continued to pound the ground, indestructible, glorious, even as my hand hung suspended between us.

“I’m tired,” I said, swallowing, “of acting and lying and saying all these things that I don’t mean, not anymore. I’m tired of waking up and looking the mirror and not caring, because there’s no one to look pretty for. I’m tired of wishing I could cry, of wishing for things that aren’t ever going to be real, come true. I’m tired of waiting for you to be honest, and waiting for you to care, and waiting for you to notice that I do. I do care.”

“Hermione,” he began, taking a step forward.

“I’m so tired,” I interrupted softly, brokenly, “of being tired.”

And that was when I fell apart.

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” I cried desperately, grasping grasping grasping at any way I could possibly make it better, alleviate the pain, the stress, the confusion and the strain and the pressure, but he was shaking his head, smirking, almost, and I couldn’t understand, comprehend, make any sense of any of it, and I was only dimly aware that I’d fallen to my knees, that the tears I’d so staunchly, so stupidly held back, were finally running in salty rivulets down my cheeks, down my chin, down my throat, mingling with the rain, and I only dimly aware that he was gathering me up in an embrace that could have been sweet, that could have been beautiful, and I was only dimly aware of my name being repeated, over and over: a benediction, a prayer, a promise, something sacred and holy and reassuring and pitiful, elegiac, ordinary.

“I had no idea,” he whispered: I can’t be held accountable for all the things you make me wish for.

And the he kissed me.

He kissed me, and it continued to rain.

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