Stronger Chapter Eighteen

Stronger

By: Provocative Envy

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It happened in a blur: a wondrously corrupt, pathetically fitting blur. The hero and the heroine, united once more under appalling circumstances, circumstances that left me, the villain, the bully, the two-faced antagonist, in a head-on collision of bitterness and agony. A wreck of torrentially resplendent emotions was all that would be left by the time they were gone: mangled beyond repair, beyond recognition, my heart would be trampled by her denial and his loyalty; by her apathy and his scorn.

She pushed me away with a startled shriek, a breathless shriek, her eyes catching mine briefly before flying towards Potter’s, her impassioned plea of innocence pounding through my eardrums and reverberating through my skull. Everything was happening all at once, it seemed, Potter’s virulent disbelief, and shock, and outrage, contorting into her betrayal, her defiance; I couldn’t tell them apart, couldn’t differentiate between my anger and my anguish.

I couldn’t get my mouth to open, couldn’t force words out to make it all better, to make Potter go away, to make Hermione stay. I couldn’t get my lips to quirk into a triumphant smile when I looked up and saw my pasty white reflection in the glint off of Potter’s glasses. I couldn’t manage to shake my head, or defend myself when he sent a punch to my midsection. I couldn’t hold back my grunt of pain, couldn’t stop myself from dropping to my knees.

All I could do, all I could think to do, was study her: and everything made sense, in a brilliant burst of clarity. She was watching me, biting her lip, her eyes brimming with remorse, regret, and an unspoken apology. She was saying something quickly and quietly to Potter, her hands moving swiftly as she gesticulated; I knew she was making her excuses, knew she was using that famous intellect to concoct a plausible reason she had been caught in a compromising position with her nemesis.

But I couldn’t even blame her.

My whole life had been leading up to this moment, this second of tragedy. I couldn’t imagine anything less of a disaster, less of a letdown; there was nothing anticlimactic about the wrenching of my gut, the roaring of my blood.

Her face, with a thousand different smiles and a thousand different frowns, flitted through my mind: she was laughing at one of Weasley’s jokes, her hands clasped delightedly in front of her; she was being hurled backwards by a hex meant for Potter, her gasp of dismayed astonishment lost amidst Potter’s shout; she was pale and thin, grotesquely so, in the hospital wing; she was tired and drawn, trying to avoid me in the library; she was biting down on her lips, trying not scream, surrounded by men my father called friends, men my friends called Father.

She was snorting in disdain when she listened to me explain away my Mark; she was smiling tremulously, weakly, before I’d kissed her; she was trying so, so hard to stay strong and ignore me, that night by the lake.

Abruptly, I brought myself back to the present, only to realize barely a minute had passed.

Abruptly, I jerked myself out of my stupor, only to realize that she’d stopped speaking.

“Isn’t that right, Malfoy?” she said fiercely, clearly repeating herself.

I nodded once, my mouth tightening of its own accord, and stepped around them.

“Whatever you say, Hermione,” I shrugged, belittling my volatile temper with my careless show of nonchalance.

And then I fled as quickly as I could without running, as quietly as I could without treading lightly.

I hadn’t bothered to snatch up my makeshift journal.

I hadn’t bothered to explain myself.

I hadn’t bothered to tell her the one thing that might have changed her mind, the one thing that might have made her stop clinging to Potter and start clinging to me. The one thing that would have made her lips part with surprise, confusion, and eventual understanding.

I hadn’t bothered to say those five words of magnificent magnitude out loud: I will always hate you.

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