after you | dramione

6. caring for you.

Bad idea, he's already looking at you.

After Draco, no form of comfort or support could make her well, her again. It was futile to even try to go back to her merry ways, because how could she go back to being happy when her own happiness had resided in the one person she had killed oh so metaphorically. Taking one's memories was no less than murder itself; you deprived someone of what they believed in, what they loved, what they stood up, whom they stood for- in her eyes, it was the same as taking a life.

Things had been extremely hard- she had woken up to nightmares, eventually reaching a point where she slept through them so when Luna Love good had suggested therapy like a last resort, she did not mind even putting herself up for that too. Of course, it had been uncomfortable- had she told that she had taken away the memories of the love of her life to muggles, it was going to be a one way ticket to a mental health institution.

Ao she tried to listen.

People who had lost their lovers and their loved ones. She listened to stories about strangers, men, women and children she had exchanged pleasantries with, neither as much as hello but for the first time in the three months she had sat down with this little support group of hers, she could actually relate to what they were saying.

Everyone described the people they had lost, the people they were about to lose in due time because of some painful disease or even just old age; she noticed how they always started their conversation with their eyes and ended it on the same note.

"Her eyes were so full of life when I first met her... Tragic that her lifeless eyes greeted me before her soulful voice did one day."

"He was a tall admirable man with the bluest of blue eyes I met in Birmingham... He looked at me one last time with his mirthful eyes before disappearing forever with a new woman."

Back then, she had just nodded, now, she felt it for herself.

It was a surreal experience to witness this for herself but at the same time, she was hopeless as in what to do next.

He was looking at her and was closing the distance between them again. This time, Hermione didn't back up against the wall, she did what she had to- pulled him ush against her body, wrapping her arms around his lean torso, knowing the home it was to her, this warmth, this proximity, him all over, that's what she had been craving. Fresh tears cascaded down her cheeks and onto his white dress shirt, however, her fists balled up didn't go down from his chest.

"Draco," his name is like a whisper on her lips, she finds herself spinning in a dizziness.

It's him, it's all him, all him.

In response, she hears him murmur something against her skin, something that sounded an awful lot like a mere hmm.

Hermione braces herself for what is to come next. She was going to make the same mistake again but this time, at least she knows that he is well and happy even if Demi and herself are not in the equation. That's what love did to you, it made you think of the other person before yourself.

The universe sure worked in crazy ways.

"What I'm about to tell you-" warmth spreads through her chest when she feels him press bus hand on the small of her back, running his lean fingers up and down her spine in a calming manner. She didn't realise her body had been shaking so violently prior to the mantra, now, it was much easier to identify.

You're not supposed to feel this way, not whsneit took you eight years to get back up again.

He is awfully quiet, she takes into account.