A Wonderful Fortuitous Love

17. You're His Now

"Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance."

— Osho

________________________________________

Draco reached over Granger, his forearm brushing lightly against her shoulder in the process, and easily slipped the upside-down book out of her hold. Her hands remained in the air, suggesting she didn’t even notice, and when he turned her book around the right way and eased it in her hands again, she did not move.

He was beginning to suspect she was a robot.

First Granger had brought her cat dog food, then when her least favourite show aired, Witch Weekly’s Top Model, she didn’t even make any loud remark about how superficial the whole thing was, nor did she try changing the channel. She had a burger for lunch and hadn’t bothered removing the pickles as she always did, and when she’d first woken up, Draco had had to push back the routinely remark about her hair and stifle down a scream of horror when a moth flew out of it.

And now she was reading a book – a book, the object Hermione Granger valued most above all else – upside-down.  

Upside-freaking-down.

Granger wasn’t Granger anymore.

The world was going to end. He was sure of it.

Four days pasted and still her attitude did not change. It wasn’t like the night he’d found her crying in her room. At least then she’d actually managed a smile and could, no matter how unhealthy it was, pretend as though nothing had happened. This time, she seemed to have trouble even managing a smile around home and he thought maybe a person could only go through the same thing over and over again so many times until they finally couldn’t do it anymore. The impenetrable façade Granger had was crumbling. She tried immersing herself in work – much like she did in Hogwarts, but this failed to do the trick. It did not take her mind off the Weasel. He knew this because he could always hear her huffing and sighing agitatedly to herself at the table, furiously flipping through paper after paper for something that would occupy her. And when she failed to find anything, anything at all to serve as a distraction, she would sleep. Though Draco did not think that was a very successful solution either, the bags under her eyes being full proof, and despite that he had never heard her (his theory was she’d put a Muffliato Charm on the room), her eyes were also sometimes bloodshot and puffy. If that didn’t confirm crying, he didn’t know what did.

What probably had him the most perplexed was that, no matter how upset she was at home, Granger did not let any of this interfere with her work. She smiled (no matter how weakly) and talked as though she wasn’t crying herself to sleep, and Draco eventually came to terms that there were some things in life he would never understand.

He watched her when she didn’t know he was looking and he saw, unlike the rest of the employees, how often she yawned, rubbed her eyes, sighed, fiddled with the quill, or just very briefly wiped under her eye. And this had Draco thinking how many other people had gone through what Granger was right now without anybody noticing. He glanced up and looked down the halls to where everybody was walking and chatting, some holding coffee mugs, some not, some with food or papers, and others with bags, and Draco wondered which ones had had to pretend that everything was okay. He wondered what battles everybody was quietly going through. How many of those people had gotten into a fight with a loved one the previous morning? How many hated their jobs, what sob story did they have buried underneath all the false smiles and small talk? What had previously happened to them in their lives that made them the person they are today?