The Half-Blood Prince | Hermione Granger x Male Reader (Book Six)

13. The Safe Place

Y/N had found himself going to the Room of Requirement more and more often and even sometimes, he would run into Draco who merely just acknowledged him before leaving. What Draco did in there, he wouldn't tell Y/N.

Y/N spent countless hours in that room, practicing his newly learnt spell and improving his physique. For him, it was a distraction, the physical pain would overcome his mental pain and he wouldn't have to think about everything that was currently going wrong in his life. He would constantly tire himself out before collapsing on the bed that was in the Room of Requirement and not wake up until the next day. Recently, he would spend more time in this room than the Slytherin Common Room. The Room of Requirement was his safe place.

The mental state the boy was in was not stable, he would very often lash out on himself or others and self-control seemed to be impossible for him. However hard he tried to suppress his feelings, he would always let his anger get the best of him. That's why the boy liked to keep to himself in the Room of Requirement, he always felt so guilty about his emotions getting the better of him and him lashing out at people that he would retreat to his safe place and let out his anger on inanimate objects and mainly himself.

He thought that he was alone and that no one apart from Draco would ever find out that he was here, but what he didn't know was that Hermione Granger had been trying her best keep an eye out for him. She would constantly borrow Harry's map and would try to locate where Y/N was. Most of the time, he didn't appear on the map and that was what confused Hermione the most.

"I thought this map showed everyone in the castle?" Hermione complained to Harry, whilst the two of them were sitting in the Common Room, waiting for Ron to come back from the detention he had gotten for the snarky comments he had made about Cormac McLaggen.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, it does."

"Then why can't I find him?" Hermione thought to herself. She scoured the map again but had no luck finding Y/N.

One day, with Harry and Ron gone at Quidditch practice, she was watching the map and her eyes lit up when she saw Y/N's name. What intrigued her was that he would be walking towards the seventh floor before disappearing. When Harry and Ron returned back from Quidditch, Hermione pulled Harry to the side after having a random thought.

"Has Ron seen this map?" Hermione whispered to Harry.

"No, why?" Harry questioned.

"It shows Y/N as Y/N, not F/N. So if Ron saw...he would be confused." Hermione explained.

Harry nodded and made a mental note to make sure no one else other than himself and Hermione use the map. Dumbledore had learnt that both Hermione and Harry knew about Y/N's act as a Malfoy and told them both that it was paramount that they kept it a secret.

"What's on the seventh floor?" Hermione thought to herself. She didn't want to ask Harry because she didn't want him involved between herself and Y/N, he was her problem, his wellbeing was her priority, not Harry's.

Then it hit her. Remembering what had happened in her fifth year relating to Dumbledore's Army, she realised that the Room of Requirement was on the seventh floor. That was where Y/N was. Hastily giving Harry back his map, she rushed out the Common Room, ignoring Harry's shouts of confusion.

Over in the Room of Requirement, Y/N was currently trying to master his spell. He could do it with his wand but it could be a lot more effective if he could do it non-verbally. After multiple failed attempts, he reverted back to performing it with his wand.

"Amicus ex inferno!" Y/N muttered with his wand out, immediately the Fiendfyre with a tiger head at the front started charging towards the dummy that he was using to mimick his enemy. The tail of the Fiendfyre circled around him, giving him protection. The blazing heat of the fire was almost engulfing Y/N and once it disappeared, the boy saw the remains of the dummy. It was now burnt and it's ashy remains were collecting on the ground. He wouldn't even be able to repair it since Fiendfyre was Dark magic so he merely just cleaned it up and made the ashes disappear.

Afterwards, Y/N decided that he wanted to go to the Great Hall to grab some lunch, he knew there would probably be food in the room but he still wanted to go and speak to Draco and check up and make sure he was ok.

Leaving the room, Y/N thought he was in the clear before hearing a voice.

"What are you doing in there?"

His head snapping in the direction the voice was, he noticed whom the voice belonged to, it was Hermione Granger. Standing there, watching Y/N, inspecting him, trying to see if the boy was ok.

In all honestly, he was not ok.

"I was just checking something in there." Y/N replied cooly.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the boy, she saw his scars and was immediately concerned. "Show me what you do in there."

Sighing, knowing that there was no way he could defy her, Y/N turned to the door and it reappeared again, pushing the door open and motioning for Hermione to come in, he sat down on the bed.

"What do you do here?" Hermione asked, looking around. To her, it seemed like the boy was living here. There was a bed, there was some food and there was all the basic necessities Y/N needed to live here. Her eyes found the books on the shelves and she walked over, inspecting all of them.

"Training..." Y/N muttered.

"For what?" Hermione asked, looking at Y/N.

"For him Hermione, who else?" Y/N said, his eyes meeting Hermione's.

In that moment, Hermione looked into his eyes and saw how broken the boy truly was. He was slowly losing himself because of a task that he was forced to do. The boy she loved was slowly turning into someone who she knew couldn't love her back, it was just wrong.

Placing herself on the bed and taking a hold of Y/N's hands, Hermione looked Y/N right in the eye. "Talk to me Y/N."

The boy took a deep breath before speaking. "It's just so hard 'Mione, it hurts so much. Every single day I can't take it anymore, I come here to distract myself, I come here to put myself through so much physical pain that I cannot feel anything and I numb everything in my life. But it still hurts, so fucking much Hermione. I just want to leave it all behind because I don't want to turn into him, but I know I'm slowly turning into him, it happened with McLaggen and I know it's going to happen again but I just feel so angry all the time and I feel so helpless because I can't do anything."

Tears in her eyes, Hermione held onto Y/N's hands tightly, like if she let go she would lose him forever. "Y-you'll stay strong though right? You'll stay strong for me?"

He nodded. "That's all that's keeping me sane Hermione. You're all that I have left."

"That's not true!" Hermione protested. "You have Harry, you have Ron, you have your family!"

Y/N let out a dry laugh. "Ron hates my guts, but I miss him. I miss my best friend so much."

Hermione then proceeded to hug Y/N tightly, burying her face in the crook of his neck. "I love you so much Y/N, please don't ever forget that. I don't think I could live without you."

"Neither 'Mione, you're my lifeline. You're the only person who's stopping me from turning out exactly like him."

Hermione removed herself from the hug before placing her delicate lips on Y/N's, their lips melting together as all was forgotten and they shared a moment of passion. This was something that Y/N almost forgot about, but as soon as Hermione's lips met his, all his troubles and all his problems seem to go away and the only thing on his mind was his love for the bushy-haired girl he fell for in his first year.

Pulling away, Y/N looked Hermione dead in the eye. "I promise you, Hermione Jean Granger, that I will do anything in my power to make sure you get to lead the life you deserve, regardless of whether I'm in it or not."

"Don't say that Y/N! Of course you're going to be there. I'm going to marry you one day and we're going to have two children and we're going to live the life we've always deserved." Hermione said, a tear falling down her cheek.

Using his thumb to wipe the tear away, Y/N smiled sadly at her. "Yeah...I'm going to marry you someday."

In both their minds, the future was uncertain but in that moment, the two of them were engulfed in such passion that all thoughts were lost, all doubts of the future were removed and all clothes began to come off...