The Road

Anew

He wasn't in the room.

But before Hermione could feel the pang to her heart, the sound of the shower running washed over her with relief. A warm shower was the first thing that came to mind too when she left prison. Suddenly, her Slytherin side took hold. Peeling off her shirt and jeans, she followed the delicious sound of running water into the bathroom.

"About that. Um, you know...I don't think that...you living here is as...problematic as I thought it would be."

"Not problematic? Thanks, Malfoy for the delightful compliment."

"You know what I mean. I was going to say, if you really like living here...I wouldn't mind."

"So you're saying this town is, in fact, big enough for the two of us?"

"Precisely."

The bathroom air was sticky and hot, but comforting in comparison to the pathetic dripping water that they called a shower in prison, and probably the cold water bucket they would simply throw at him. She saw his silhouette through the shower curtain, not really caring about the vouyerism of it all.

"It's strange. You being here."

"What do you mean?"

"How did we end up in the same place? How did you find me when I was so sure I wouldn't be found?"

"Logically, it was because we just ended up on the same road and found the same town."

"It still doesn't make sense. You could have gone anywhere but instead you came right to me and didn't know it. I've been trying to make sense of it since you got here."

"Are you saying you don't want me around?"

"No! God no, that's not what I meant. Bloody hell. I just mean it's too....coincidental."

"Are you saying we were fated to find each other, Draco?"

Grabbing a wash cloth off the shelf, she peeled off her undergarments before climbing in with him. His back was to her as he washed his hair. His back muscles moved with him and Hermione ached to touch him.

"And what about now? Here and now in the universe where that past exists," she recited. It was a rebellious question, one that passed through the cracks in the walls she's built around her. It crossed his boundary line that made him emotionally unavailable for everyone since Mary. But alas, it was a question that needed an answer.

He leaned into her side and finally kissed her. It was soft and slow, but it felt like he was holding himself back from going further.

"What was that for?"

"That was my answer."

Hermione let her hand drift to his shoulder. He winced immediately, spinning around and shouted, "Bloody hell!" Hermione threw her head back in laughter at his utter shock. To be perfectly fair, she would have freaked out too. Then again, this was her hotel room.

"Granger," his voice and face immediately softened. Those eyes again. The ones that she looked into hours before, not knowing what was to come of them. Not knowing if she'd see them again. She could weep.

"Draco, I-" But her words escaped her as he grabbed her about the waist and pulled her in, planting his lips on hers like a collision of the best kind.

_______

Hermione could be shipped off to Azkaban tomorrow for all she cared. Because at that moment, watching Draco Malfoy attempt to fix the hotel radio the muggle way, with his wand three feet away from, meant she had officially lived a full life. She was entangled next to him, the sheets slightly wet from the journey from the shower to the bed. Moments before, she simply voiced that it would be nice to listen to some music. It was just an idea, and she didn't mean for him to leave the bed. But when he tried to play something, it led to a full 10 minutes of Draco fiddling with the contraption in his lap.

She nudged her foot into the base of his back and said, "You know, I said maybe it would be nice to hear some music."

He ignored her touch and said, "I've almost got it."

"Right, and it took you how many months exactly to fix my car?" Draco huffed out a laugh and let his head fall back away from the bloody thing. Finally, he placed the radio on the floor and turned to her. He climbed on top of her, and Hermione felt warm all over again, like he never left. "As I recall,  that car was a piece of shit," Draco told her before letting his lips fall to the base of her neck, where'd he left his mark about half an hour prior. "And," he said through kisses, "It only took that long because I knew you wanted to spend all your time with me anyway."

Hermione chuckled, letting her hand thread into his blond locks, "From what I remember, it sounds like you entrapped me, Draco." She earned a playful bite at that.

______

"M-Mura-"

"Murakami," Hermione giggled as Draco tried to pronounce the poet's name.

Hermione enchanted the canopy of the bed with the night sky from Cherrywood, or at least how she remembered all those months ago, in the bed of his truck. The stars were speckled across the sky like nothing she had ever seen before in England.

"The stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me."

"Do you believe they're watching you?" he asked her.

She pondered a moment before saying, "I'd like to think that life isn't full of coincidences. And that someone is working to make all of this make sense." She turned to look at him, and he was staring down at her with upmost difficulty. Because the resounding question of it all, is how did she find him? If the world were to be just full of coincidences?

The scary part of it all, is that if it wasn't just a coincidence, then what does a person make of that? Knowing everything they've been through is somehow planned and calculated. But when she felt Draco's heart beat under her hand, the way it quickened when she touched him, she couldn't fathom how anything as special and as important could be so callously calculated.

It was a careful line drawn, between a calculated plan and fate itself.
______

"Silencio."

The word left Draco's mouth in a whisper as his wand was moved between himself and the sleeping form of Hermione. He set his wand beside him, and unrolled the note he had stuffed in his coat pocket. He began:

"Granger.

"For someone who hated Divination in school, you sure like to believe in something far greater than all of this. Your logic never ceases to confound me. Yet, it's the one thing I am now certain of. Because I'd like to think that life isn't full of coincidences too.

I don't know what led you to Cherrywood, Granger, and I don't care. Whether it was your piece of shit car, a shitty job, or shitty landlord, I don't care. Because it got you to me. And that has to mean something.

You've brought me back home. Forced me to face the Wizengamot and demand my freedom, something I was stupid enough to have been running from this whole time. More over, you got me to see that people will listen to you if you're loud, stubborn, and bushy-haired enough.

I have no doubt that there's something much more important here. Ever since we were 12, I've grown with you, interacted with you in glimpses. Hell, Granger, you throw a mean right hook. And you looked bloody brilliant at the Yule Ball.

And now, I have more of you. Sometimes, I believe it's more than I deserve.

What I'm trying to say is, without sounding like a blubbering romantic, is that I think the universe has been trying to tell me that I'm completely and entirely in love with you..."

Draco sighed and paused to watch as her chest rose and fell soundlessly.

He returned to his note:

"But if I am to believe in this whole universe nonsense, then that means that....there's something I have to do. I don't know when I'll be back. But, I mean this when I say: don't find me. Not because I believe you're bound to - even though clearly part of you is - but because you don't have to keep finding the same road to get to me. Because, believe me, Granger, every road I take will always lead back to you."

His eyes returned to her; still asleep. He sighed deeply. He just had to say it out loud once.