Saving You

Following Orders

Pansy must've felt his suspicious gaze, because her own eyes flashed up, connecting with his. She tilted her head and put on a smirk, the slant of lips slight, but oh-so-superior.

Harry couldn't stop his lip from curling in disgust. He only let himself glare at her a moment longer before shifting focus back to Hermione.

She flipped the pages of her book slowly, ever so carefully, as if they were delicate sheets of glass instead of paper. Unlike his ravenous gaze, hers read the words at snail-pace. If she felt determined or desperate, it didn't show. She appeared to only be searching out of obligation, only because she knew she was supposed to, how it would look if she didn't.

Only because she didn't feel like having to explain why she didn't care.

Was she angry… sad…? Afraid? She didn't say, so they couldn't be certain. But the look on her face, in her eyes—that familiar faraway gaze that stared off at nothing—had her three closest friends extremely concerned.

Hermione felt familiar emerald eyes watching her worriedly from across the table. She glanced up to meet Harry's examining gaze, but could barely muster up the reassuring smile she knew he needed. He smiled back, sort of, but it was an uncertain, skeptical sort of smile.

And suddenly she was keenly aware that she wasn't performing well enough. She wasn't acting the way someone in her position was supposed to act. It bothered them, she knew, that she wasn't worried about the curse. They read her reaction—or lack thereof—as apathy, as a sign that she no longer cared what happened to her.

And maybe she didn't. Because when she caught herself gazing off at nothing or getting lost in thought, it wasn't herself, herlife, that she found her mind dwelling on. Not her life, but his…

Draco…

Her gaze softened. Where was he, she wondered? Was he safe? Would she see him again? She had the sinking feeling that he wasn't—that she wouldn't.

There's always more, isn't there…

She had to believe that now—had to. It was the only thing keeping her afloat.

She turned her tired eyes back to the black words on the page. Fate was a funny thing, she thought with grim amusement. It had a way of misleading you, making you feel so secure in one moment—pulling the rug out from under you in the next. It dangled dreams and wishes on a string before your eyes, made them seem so attainable, then snatched them away so that they were just out of reach.

Hermione had followed Dumbledore's directive. She had put her trust in Fate or God or whatever it was that made the world turn around. And once again she had been let down.

Worse still, she'd been surprised. She had expected it to end sooner or later—she'd told herself often enough that it would, that it had to. Still, when the moment had come, she'd been taken completely off guard. They'd said goodbye so many times and never really meant it. They'd said it so many times, and still it had never really been real. But this time… this time there had been no characteristic farewell, no longing looks cast back over their shoulders. And it terrified her. Because this time, for the first time, she couldn't feel him. All of a sudden he was just… gone. Without warning, without leaving a trace of himself behind. This time it felt… real. This time it felt definite. Could Fate really be so cruel, stringing them along again and again after every false farewell—and only truly ending it when they didn't have the chance to say goodbye?

"This is pointless," Ron declared suddenly, but Hermione was too deep in her own thoughts to hear him. Frustrated, the redhead pushed the book in front of him away and slouched down in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. "If there's nothing in the archives, then I think it's safe to say there's not gonna be anything in the bloody school library."